DesertFox
10-10-2007, 05:38 AM
Saturn's moon Iapetus has virtually no gray. Rather, its features are all stark black and white. The appearance has long puzzled astronomers.
New detailed images suggest sunlight is melting ice on one side of Iapetus, leaving the moon's dark surface exposed, while the opposite half retains its reflective ice-mixed shell.
Since the moon's discovery by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1671, Iapetus' appearance has baffled astronomers. The leading edge of Iapetus, which faces the direction of its orbit, is black as asphalt, while its trailing side appears bright as snow. Iapetus is 907 miles (1,460 kilometers) wide and circles Saturn at a distance of about 2.2 million miles
More (http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/mysteryofsaturnstwofacedmoonsolved)
New detailed images suggest sunlight is melting ice on one side of Iapetus, leaving the moon's dark surface exposed, while the opposite half retains its reflective ice-mixed shell.
Since the moon's discovery by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1671, Iapetus' appearance has baffled astronomers. The leading edge of Iapetus, which faces the direction of its orbit, is black as asphalt, while its trailing side appears bright as snow. Iapetus is 907 miles (1,460 kilometers) wide and circles Saturn at a distance of about 2.2 million miles
More (http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/mysteryofsaturnstwofacedmoonsolved)