Reddish Dust and Ice Migration Darken Saturn's Moon Iapetus

New views of Saturn's moon Iapetus accompany papers that detail how reddish dust swept up on the moon's orbit around Saturn and migrating ice can explain the bizarre, yin-yang-patterned surface.

The papers, led by Cassini scientists Tilmann Denk and John Spencer, appeared online in the journal Science on Dec. 10, 2009.

These two global images of Iapetus show the extreme brightness dichotomy on the surface of this peculiar Saturnian moon. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The new image in the left-hand panel of PIA11690 shows the most nearly complete view to date of Iapetus' charcoal-dark leading hemisphere. The right-hand panel, which had been released previously, shows the trailing hemisphere, where wide swaths are covered by bright ice.

Three different false-color views of Saturn's moon Iapetus show the boundary of the global "color dichotomy" on the hemisphere of this moon facing away from Saturn. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The new three-panel image PIA11689 uses false-color views in increasing levels of contrast to reveal the reddish dust that overlays the bright-dark pattern. Minimal enhancement was applied to the left panel, with increasing contrast added to the middle and right-hand images.

For more information, see http://www.swri.org/9what/releases/2009/Iapetus.htm.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20091210.html

and

http://worldspacesatellites.blogspot.com/