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Details in the Dark

Target Name:  Iapetus
Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
Instrument:  Imaging Science Subsystem - Narrow Angle
Produced by:  NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Copyright: NASA Copyright Free Policy
Cross Reference:  PIA06646
Date Taken:  19 March 2005

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This view shows one of the huge impact basins on the terminator of Saturn's moon Iapetus and a smaller, but still fairly large, crater near the southern bright-dark boundary. Just visible near the western limb, in the dark territory of Cassini Regio, is the moon's mysterious equatorial ridge. The ridge was discovered in Cassini images (see PIA06166) and reaches 20 kilometers (12 miles) high in places.

This view shows principally the leading hemisphere on Iapetus. North is up and tilted 15 degrees to the right. Iapetus is 1,468 kilometers (912 miles) across.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 19, 2005, through spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.4 million kilometers (880,000 miles) from Iapetus and at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 70 degrees. Resolution in the original image was 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.

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