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Iapetus

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MOON

Iapetus

The two-toned "yin-yang" moon — one hemisphere as dark as asphalt, the other brilliant white.

Orbits Saturn
  • Leading hemisphere (Cassini Regio) albedo ~0.03-0.05; trailing hemisphere albedo ~0.5-0.6.
  • Massive equatorial ridge 20 km tall girdles two-thirds of the moon.
  • Dark material is dust from the distant moon Phoebe, collected on the leading hemisphere.

Physical Properties

735 km
1.805635e21 kg
1.088 g/cm³
0.224 m/s²
1903.92 h
0.25
110 K

Orbit

Saturn
3,560,820 km
0.0283
15.47°
79.3215 d

Missions to Iapetus

1 spacecraft tracked on Space Launch Live.

Sources & Further Reading

Numerical values (radius, mass, orbital elements, temperatures) are drawn from NASA NSSDC Planetary Fact Sheets, JPL Horizons, and the JPL Small-Body Database. Last refreshed: 2026-04-18 18:19:24.

Iapetus is Saturn’s third-largest moon and perhaps its strangest. Its two hemispheres differ so dramatically in brightness that Giovanni Cassini, who discovered it in 1671, could only see the moon when it was on one side of Saturn. The leading hemisphere (Cassini Regio) is painted a dark reddish-brown by dust blown off the distant retrograde moon Phoebe; the trailing hemisphere is bright water ice. Iapetus also features a mysterious 20-km-tall equatorial ridge that wraps two-thirds of the way around the moon — the tallest relief in the Solar System.