In the world of moons and planets people are quite excited about the recent Cassini flyby of Iapetus. What we have known about this moon for quite some time is that it is much lighter on one side than the other. Voyager gave us a peek at that phenomenon and then when Cassini got a closer look it started to seem as if something has rained down this dark material on one side of the moon but not on the other. However, now that Cassini has come within 1500 km the details are staggering. Nobody has any idea at this point what possible process could have created this surface. There are places where the bright material seems deposited and others where the dark does.
As more details and theories come in, there will be additional posts. Just worth noting that the scientific community seems to be as excited about this as they were when they got their first looks at Jupiter’s moons from Voyager.
By the way, DO CLICK ON THAT IMAGE above… its HUGE.