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Oct 5, 2021 · Iapetus possesses a heavily-cratered . surface all over where a small number of large, ancient craters lie underneath a more copiously cratered recent history. It also is rich in darker material ...
Sep 12, 2007 · PASADENA, Calif. – Scientists on the Cassini mission to Saturn are poring through hundreds of images returned from the Sept. 10 flyby of Saturn's two-toned moon Iapetus. Pictures returned late Tuesday and early Wednesday show the moon's yin and yang--a white hemisphere resembling snow, and the other as black as tar.
Jan 7, 2005 · This oblique view of Saturn's moon Iapetus from high latitude shows how the dark, heavily cratered terrain of Cassini Regio transitions to a bright, icy terrain at high latitudes. In this mosaic of two high resolution images taken during Cassini's New Year's Eve 2004 flyby of Iapetus, the direction toward the north pole is approximately 15 degrees below the horizontal on the right. At the ...
Equatorial ridge. / 0°N -0°E / 0; -0. The equatorial ridge is the tallest mountain feature on Saturn 's moon Iapetus. It is 20 km (12 mi) high, and is the third tallest mountain structure in the Solar System. It runs along most of Iapetus' equator. It was discovered by the Cassini probe in 2004. The ridge's origin is unknown.
Aug 9, 2021 · It follows Iapetus' equator almost perfectly, and is heavily cratered, and therefore ancient. For now, scientists are not sure of the origins of the ridge. One theory is that the ridge is icy material that rose from inside the moon and solidified. The other is that Iapetus once grazed the outer edges of Saturn's rings. How long is a day on Iapetus?
Oddly, this ridge is almost exactly parallel with Iapetus' equator. The exact shape of Iapetus remains undetermined, but images indicate that it is quite strange -- something like a walnut. Research into the formation and history of mysterious Iapetus is active and ongoing. APOD: 2005 October 12 - Cratered Cliffs of Ice on Saturns Tethys
The pole regions of Iapetus are as bright as its trailing hemisphere. Cassini also discovered a 20 km tall equatorial ridge, which spans nearly the moon's entire equator. Otherwise both dark and bright surfaces of Iapetus are old and heavily cratered.
