Global Map of Iapetus

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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

About Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay.