&philcUK

gallery

Cassini captures a high-resolution 60 image mosaic of Saturn's moon Iapetus. The image shows the entire hemisphere of Iapetus (912 miles across) visible from Cassini on its encounter with the two-toned moon in Sept. 2007. The region appears heavily cratered; the most prominent topographic feature being a 280 mile wide impact basin, one of at least nine such large basins on Iapetus. In many places, dark nitrogen-bearing organic compounds called cyanides coat equator-facing slopes and crater floors.

Credit: NASA/JPL/ESA.