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Cassini's Iapetus Flyby

Posted by samzenpus on from the to-the-moon dept.

cupofjoe writes "The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is reporting on the Cassini spacecraft's recent close flyby of the Saturnian moon Iapetus, highlighting images taken from distances 100 times closer than the Voyager 2 flyby in 1981. Near real-time images were shown to Cassini mission team members in a presentation at JPL yesterday, during which a pre-recorded message from Arthur C. Clarke was played to the audience. Clarke wished them luck on the flyby, reminding all present that he had included a pretty accurate description of Iapetus in the original 1968 text of "2001: A Space Odyssey", years before Voyager made its flyby."

7 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. amazing photos by cathector · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i'm at a loss to explain those inky black patches.
    wonderful photos.

  2. Inky Stains by Trouvist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you look closely at what they describe as "Inky Stains" on Iapetus, they look more like burst bubbles. If you consider a consistent direction for the sun's light, and look at the pictures that overlap with different shades of shadow, it looks like the surface of the satellite was covered by air pockets and they happened to either cave in or break. The edges seem slightly too jagged and defined for them to be "stains." Compare "Inky stains on a frozen moon" to "Iapetus Flyby Raw Preview #13" and you can see what I'm talking about. I don't think those are discolorations, they look like caverns.

    1. Re:Inky Stains by Durrok · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Those craters could be miles deep or just a few feet. The astronauts on the moon had the same misconception, grabbing rope to lower themselves down into craters thinking it was a sharp incline when in fact it was just a gentle slope. Shadows can be very deceptive.

      --
      I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
    2. Re:Inky Stains by OldBus · · Score: 4, Interesting
      When I first saw the image I thought they were bubbles too. After reading your post I flipped the image 180 degrees and they were revealed as craters. Just goes to show how much our brains are wired to see light coming from the top...

      Anyway, I suspect the dark stains are probably not caves as when you enlarge the image you can see wisps of the white material on the dark stuff. It would be interesting to know if it was the dark material that caused the craters or whether whatever caused the craters revealed the dark material under the white surface.

  3. Re:Good ol' ACC... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Especially as he didn't predict anything too extraordinary about Iapetus.

    If he's right about life on Europa though, that would be much more impressive. Which is why it was strange he's not lobbying for a Europa mission. It's not as if life on Europa is impossible, in fact it seems quite plausible.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  4. Other way around.... by mdm-adph · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dark patches over a white surface? If you ask me, it looks like the other way around -- take a look:

    http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS33/N00092126.jpg

    Doesn't it look like the white is covering the black and slowly un-covering it due to craters forming?

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  5. Ridge Flyover GIF(shameless selflink) by brownpau · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I tried making an animated GIF of the equatorial ridge flyover photos just to get a sense of Cassini's motion as it flew by Iapetus. A bit jumpy, but wow.