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Explanation: What would make a moon look like a walnut? A strange ridge that circles Saturn's moon Iapetus's equator, visible near the bottom of the featured image, makes it appear similar to a popular edible nut. The origin of the ridge remains unknown, though, with hypotheses including ice that welled up from below, a ring that crashed down from above, and structure left over from its formation perhaps 100 million years ago. Also strange is that about half of Iapetus is so dark that it can nearly disappear when viewed from Earth, while the rest is, reflectively, quite bright. Observations...

Orginal Title:Study of Equatorial Ridge on Iapetus Suggests Exogenic OriginYou Really Don't Prefer The Original Title, Do You? A combined team of researchers from Brown University in Rhode Island and the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas is suggesting in a paper they've uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, that an equatorial mountainous ridge on one of Saturn's moons has an exogenic origin. They are basing their theory on 3D models of the moon they've created and an analysis of the types of peaks present. Iapetus, the 3rd largest of Saturn's approximately 60 moons, is distinct for two reasons. One...

Explanation: What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as ice. The composition of the dark material is unknown, but infrared spectra indicate that it possibly contains some dark form of carbon. Iapetus also has an unusual equatorial ridge that makes it appear like a walnut. To help better understand this seemingly painted moon, NASA directed the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn to swoop within 2,000 kilometers in 2007. Pictured above, from about 75,000 kilometers out, Cassini's trajectory allowed unprecedented imaging of the hemisphere of Iapetus...

Mystery of Saturn's Two-Faced Moon Solved Jeanna Bryner Staff Writer SPACE.com Tue Oct 9, 8:45 AM ET Saturn's moon Iapetus has virtually no gray. Rather, its features are all stark black and white. The appearance has long puzzled astronomers. New detailed images suggest sunlight is melting ice on one side of Iapetus, leaving the moon's dark surface exposed, while the opposite half retains its reflective ice-mixed shell. Since the moon's discovery by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1671, Iapetus' appearance has baffled astronomers. The leading edge of Iapetus, which faces the direction of its orbit, is black as asphalt, while its...

PASADENA, Calif. – Scientists on the Cassini mission to Saturn are poring through hundreds of images returned from the Sept. 10 flyby of Saturn's two-toned moon Iapetus. Pictures returned late Tuesday and early Wednesday show the moon's yin and yang--a white hemisphere resembling snow, and the other as black as tar. Images show a surface that is heavily cratered, along with the mountain ridge that runs along the moon's equator. Many of the close-up observations focused on studying the strange 20-kilometer high (12 mile) mountain ridge that gives the moon a walnut-shaped appearance. "The images are really stunning," said Tilmann...

Video greeting to NASA JPL to mark the Iapetus flyby of Cassini spacecraft -- Sept. 10, 2007 by Arthur C. Clarke (The following is a transcript of the video greeting.) Hello! This is Arthur Clarke, joining you from my home in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I'm delighted to be part of this event to mark Cassini's flyby of Iapetus. I send my greetings to all my friends - known and unknown - who are gathered for this important occasion. I only wish I could be with you, but I'm now completely wheelchaired by Polio and have no plans to leave Sri...

According to a new article by Richard C. Hoagland, the man that brought up 'startling' evidence that there Pyramids on Mars, and a face on Mars, as well as signs that inteligent life terraformed Titan, he discovered that there is something strange about Iapetus! Whis his greatness on drawing lines on pictures, he discovered that Iapetus appears to be...a spaceship! Well, to be fair, he doesn't know if it is a spaceship. However, it is one of this theories according to his new article that can be found here! http://www.enterprisemission.com/ And at the very least, he DOES believe that it...

A giant ridge girdles Saturn's satellite Iapetus - making the moon look like a walnut shell - reveal the latest images from the Cassini-Huygens mission. Scientists are at a loss to explain the feature, which is unique in the solar system. The Cassini spacecraft flew past Iapetus on New Year's Day, approaching to within 123,400 kilometres of the moon's surface. Its camera captured the most detailed images of Iapetus yet, revealing wisps of dark material and two-tone craters. But the ridge is the greatest surprise to scientists. It extends for at least 1300 km, following the equator exactly. In...

Saturn's Moon Iapetus Shows a Bulging WaistlineJanuary 7, 2005(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Iapetus in 3D More Iapetus Images Images returned by NASA's Cassini spacecraft cameras during a New Year's Eve flyby of Saturn's moon Iapetus (eye-APP-eh-tuss) show startling surface features that are fueling heated scientific discussions about their origin. One of these features is a long narrow ridge that lies almost exactly on the equator of Iapetus, bisects its entire dark hemisphere and reaches 20 kilometers high (12 miles). It extends over 1,300 kilometers (808 miles) from side to side, along its midsection. No other moon in the solar system...

Probe to 'look inside' asteroids By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff in Paris, France Studies of asteroids would aid Earth-protection strategies A new space mission concept unveiled at a Paris conference aims to look inside asteroids to reveal how they are made. Deep Interior would use radar to probe the origin and evolution of two near-Earth objects less than 1km across. The mission, which could launch some time later this decade, would also give clues to how the planets evolved. The perceived threat of asteroids colliding with our planet has renewed interest in space missions to understand these...