NASA spacecraft captures 'Death Star' moon

"That's not a spacestation, it's a moon." As Obi-Wan Kenobi didn't even come close to saying.

Perhaps he would have done had he been on board NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which photographed what looks like the Death Star, but is in fact Saturn moons Mimas and Pandora passing each other.

Mimas sports an 86 mile wide circular crater called Herschel which resembles the moon-shaped Star Wars weapon.

Taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on 14 May 2013, the picture also illustrates how Pandora's small size means that it lacks sufficient gravity to pull itself into a round shape like its larger sibling, Mimas.

Researchers believe that the elongated shape of Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometres across) may hold clues to how it and other moons near Saturn's rings formed. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 690,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Mimas.

Images: Rex