Global Map of Iapetus
Here’s a cool global map of Saturn’s moon Iapetus, stitched together from the various Cassini flybys. Cassini didn’t see the entire moon, so the imaging team put in photographs from Voyager to cover the missing polar regions.
You can see its distinct equatorial ridge on the left-hand side of the image, and the mottled dark and light patches that give the moon its Yin-Yang look. The image scale is 803 km per pixel.
It’s a little old, but check out this video of the most recent Cassini Iapetus flyby back in September 2007.
Original Source: NASA/JPL/SSI News Release
Recent Posts
Astronomers Find a 3 Million Year Old Planet
Astronomers have just found one of the youngest planets ever. At only 3 million years…
There was Hot Water on Mars 4.45 Billion Years Ago
Mars formed 4.5 billion years ago, roughly the same time as the Earth. We know…
Axion Dark Matter May Make Spacetime Ring
Dark matter made out of axions may have the power to make space-time ring like…
Earth’s Old Trees Keep A Record of Powerful Solar Storms
Most of the time the Sun is pretty well-mannered, but occasionally it's downright unruly. It…
New Supercomputer Simulation Explains How Mars Got Its Moons
One mystery in planetary science is a satisfying origin story for Mars's moons, Phobos and…
The Early Universe May Have Had Giant Batteries of Dust
The largest magnetic fields in the universe may have found themselves charged up when the…