NASA finds real-life 'Death Star'

NASA has released photos of Saturn's moon Mimas, which has since been likened to Darth Vader's Death Star from Star Wars.

According to Sci Fi Wire, Mimas behaves much more bizarrely than scientists had first anticipated.

"Other moons usually grab the spotlight, but it turns out Mimas is more bizarre than we thought it was," said Linda Spilker, cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.

"It has certainly given us some new puzzles," she added.

The cassini project collected the data on February 13, during its closest fly-by of the moon, which is marked by an enormous scar called Herschel Crater that gives it its distinctive Death Star similarity.

"We suspect the temperatures are revealing differences in texture on the surface," said John Spencer, a cassini team member based at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO.

"It's maybe something like the difference between old, dense snow and freshly fallen powder," he said.