Images taken with Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph shed some
light on the dark side of Saturn's moon Iapetus. Scientists are trying to
figure out what painted Iapetus' dark side. This is one of the biggest
mysteries scientists are trying to answer during the upcoming Sept. 10,
2007, flyby.
The ultraviolet image on the left indicates water ice abundance across the
surface: the bright north polar terrain (shown in red) is the iciest
region in this view. Away from the pole, as the color shifts to blue, less
water ice is present in the surface. The darkest terrain, which includes
very little water ice, is shown in light blue. The dark sky background
viewed during the observation is shown as purple in this color scheme.
The ultraviolet-light image was taken during a flyby in December 2004. A
visible light image taken on the same date is shown on the right for
reference (see PIA06166).
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 was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The
ultraviolet imaging spectrograph was designed and built at, and the team
is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder. 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 ultraviolet imaging spectrograph
team home page is at http://lasp.colorado.edu/cassini. The Cassini imaging
team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
