Figure 1
This stereo image, or anaglyph, shows huge mountains on Saturn's moon
Iapetus, imaged by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its very close flyby
in Sept. 2007. These mountains are located at the moon's equator in the
westward-most part of the dark terrain.
Here, the brightness pattern on the surface is very complex. The mountain
in the center of this view is part of the range informally named "the
Voyager mountains" that were first detected on the limb of the moon in
NASA Voyager spacecraft images. Interestingly, its eastern (right) flank
is dark, while the other flanks are bright. This suggests that external
material arriving on Iapetus from its orbital motion might play a role in
the darkening process. One plausible source, the outer moons of Saturn,
might provide a very thin but steady stream of very dark particles from
the eastern direction as seen from this mountain.
The mosaic consists of six image footprints across the surface of Iapetus.
The view is centered on terrain near 0.1 degree north latitude, 199
degrees west longitude. Image scale is approximately 46 meters (151 feet)
per pixel.
The clear spectral filter images in this mosaic were obtained with the
Cassini spacecraft narrow- angle camera on Sept. 10, 2007. Distances for
the blue portion of the image range from 7,744 to 9,135 kilometers (4,812
to 5,676 miles) from Iapetus; distances for the red portion of the image
range from 20,267 to 21,595 kilometers (12,593 to 13,418 miles) from the
moon.
A separate, non-stereo version of the scene is included for comparison
(figure 1).
Iapetus is 1,468 kilometers (912 miles) across.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The
Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space
Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging
team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
