Puzzling Saturn Moon Iapetus Shows Two-Tone Face in NASA Photo

Saturn's unusual moon Iapetus, as captured by the Cassini spacecraft March 11. Features in the image are visible at a scale of about 9 miles (15 kilometers) per pixel. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

Iapetus, a Saturn moon with jumbled colors, shows its strange surface shapes in a new view from the Cassini mission, which is currently exploring the gas giant.

The picture shows Cassini Regio, a dark, dusty region on the moon that is somewhat longer than the state of California. A much brighter area surrounds Cassini Regio, which gives Iapetus a two-tone face.

Cassini is in its last half-year of operations before taking a deliberate suicidal plunge into Saturn in September. The spacecraft has been at the ringed planet since 2004 and is now low on fuel, completing data collection while diving 22 times between Saturn's rings and the planet itself.

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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., was a staff writer in the spaceflight channel between 2022 and 2024 specializing in Canadian space news. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years from 2012 to 2024. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House, leading world coverage about a lost-and-found space tomato on the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller?" (ECW Press, 2022) is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams.