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

• Iapetus
• Cassini At Saturn
• Saturn

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.