Iapetus (moon)
Discovery | |
---|---|
Discovered by | G. D. Cassini |
Discovery date | October 25, 1671 |
Designations | |
Designation | Saturn VIII |
Pronunciation | /aɪˈæpətəs/[1] |
Named after | Ἰαπετός Īapetus |
Adjectives | Iapetian /aɪəˈpiːʃən/[2] |
Orbital characteristics | |
3560820 km | |
Eccentricity | 0.0276812 [3] |
79.3215 d | |
Average orbital speed | 3.26 km/s |
Inclination |
|
synchronous) | |
zero | |
Albedo | 0.05–0.5[7] |
Temperature | 90–130 K |
10.2–11.9[8] | |
Iapetus (
A relatively low-density body made up mostly of ice, Iapetus is home to several distinctive and unusual features, such as a striking difference in coloration between its leading hemisphere, which is dark, and its trailing hemisphere, which is bright, as well as a massive equatorial ridge running three-quarters of the way around the moon.
History
Discovery
Iapetus was discovered by
Cassini discovered Iapetus when the moon was on the western side of Saturn, but when he tried viewing it on the eastern side some months later, he was unsuccessful. This was also the case the following year, when he was again able to observe it on the western side, but not the eastern side. Cassini finally observed Iapetus on the eastern side in 1705 with the help of an improved telescope, finding it two magnitudes dimmer on that side.[10][11]
Cassini correctly surmised that Iapetus has a bright hemisphere and a dark hemisphere, and that it is tidally locked, always keeping the same face towards Saturn. This means that the bright hemisphere is visible from Earth when Iapetus is on the western side of Saturn, and that the dark hemisphere is visible when Iapetus is on the eastern side.[12]
Name
The name has a largely obsolete variant, Japetus[13][15] /ˈdʒæpɪtəs/,[16] with an adjectival form Japetian.[15] These occurred because there was no distinction between the letters ⟨i⟩ and ⟨j⟩ in Latin, and authors rendered them differently.
When first discovered, Iapetus was among four the
Orbit
The orbit of Iapetus is somewhat unusual. Although it is Saturn's third-largest moon, it orbits much farther from Saturn than the next closest major moon, Titan. It also has the most inclined orbital plane of the regular satellites; only the irregular outer satellites like Phoebe have more inclined orbits. Because of this distant, inclined orbit, Iapetus is the only large moon from which the rings of Saturn would be clearly visible; from the other inner moons, the rings would be edge-on and difficult to see. The cause of this highly inclined orbit is unknown; however, the moon is not likely to have been captured. One suggestion for the cause of Iapetus's orbital inclination is an encounter between Saturn and another planet in the distant past.[18]
Despite being, on average, 2.4 times further from Saturn than Hyperion, the next moon inward, Iapetus is tidally locked to Saturn while Hyperion is not.[19]
Formation
The moons of Saturn are typically thought to have formed through
Physical characteristics
The low density of Iapetus indicates that it is mostly composed of ice, with only a small (~20%) amount of rocky materials.[22]
Unlike most of the large moons, its overall shape is neither spherical nor ellipsoid, but has a bulging waistline and squashed poles.[23] Its unique equatorial ridge (see below) is so high that it visibly distorts Iapetus's shape even when viewed from a distance. These features often lead it to be characterized as walnut-shaped.
Iapetus is heavily cratered, and Cassini images have revealed large impact basins, at least five of which are over 350 km (220 mi) wide. The largest, Turgis, has a diameter of 580 km (360 mi);[24] its rim is extremely steep and includes a scarp about 15 km (9.3 mi) high.[25] Iapetus is known to support long-runout landslides or sturzstroms, possibly supported by ice sliding.[26]
Two-tone coloration
The difference in colouring between the two Iapetian hemispheres is striking. The leading hemisphere and sides are dark (
Images from the Cassini orbiter, which passed within 1,227 km (762 miles), show that both Cassini Regio and the Terra's are heavily cratered.
Because of its slow rotation of 79 days (equal to its revolution and the longest in the Saturnian system), Iapetus would have had the warmest daytime surface temperature and coldest nighttime temperature in the Saturnian system even before the development of the color contrast; near the equator, heat absorption by the dark material results in a daytime temperatures of 129 K (−144 °C) in the dark Cassini Regio compared to 113 K (−160 °C) in the bright regions.[29][34] The difference in temperature means that ice preferentially sublimates from Cassini Regio, and deposits in the bright areas and especially at the even colder poles. Over geologic time scales, this would further darken Cassini Regio and brighten the rest of Iapetus, creating a positive feedback thermal runaway process of ever greater contrast in albedo, ending with all exposed ice being lost from Cassini Regio.[29] It is estimated that over a period of one billion years at current temperatures, dark areas of Iapetus would lose about 20 meters (70 ft) of ice to sublimation, while the bright regions would lose only 10 cm (4 in), not considering the ice transferred from the dark regions.[34][35] This model explains the distribution of light and dark areas, the absence of shades of grey, and the thinness of the dark material covering Cassini Regio. The redistribution of ice is facilitated by Iapetus's weak gravity, which means that at ambient temperatures a water molecule can migrate from one hemisphere to the other in just a few hops.[29]
However, a separate process of color segregation would be required to get the thermal feedback started. The initial dark material is thought to have been debris blasted by meteors off small outer moons in
Light debris outside of Iapetus's orbit, either knocked free from the surface of a moon by micrometeoroid impacts or created in a collision, would spiral in as its orbit decays. It would have been darkened by exposure to sunlight. A portion of any such material that crossed Iapetus's orbit would have been swept up by its leading hemisphere, coating it; once this process created a modest contrast in albedo, and so a contrast in temperature, the thermal feedback described above would have come into play and exaggerated the contrast.[28][29] In support of the hypothesis, simple numerical models of the exogenic deposition and thermal water redistribution processes can closely predict the two-toned appearance of Iapetus.[29] A subtle color dichotomy between Iapetus's leading and trailing hemispheres, with the former being more reddish, can in fact be observed in comparisons between both bright and dark areas of the two hemispheres.[28] In contrast to the elliptical shape of Cassini Regio, the color contrast closely follows the hemisphere boundaries; the gradation between the differently colored regions is gradual, on a scale of hundreds of kilometers.[28] The next moon inward from Iapetus, chaotically rotating Hyperion, also has an unusual reddish color.
The largest reservoir of such infalling material is
Overall shape
Current triaxial measurements of Iapetus give it radial dimensions of 746 km × 746 km × 712 km (464 mi × 464 mi × 442 mi), with a mean radius of 734.5 ± 2.8 km (456.4 ± 1.7 mi).[5] However, these measurements may be inaccurate on the kilometer scale as Iapetus's entire surface has not yet been imaged in high enough resolution. The observed oblateness would be consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium if Iapetus had a rotational period of approximately 16 hours, but it does not; its current rotation period is 79 days.[39] A possible explanation for this is that the shape of Iapetus was frozen by formation of a thick crust shortly after its formation, while its rotation continued to slow afterwards due to tidal dissipation, until it became tidally locked.[23]
Equatorial ridge
A further mystery of Iapetus is the
It is not clear how the ridge formed. One difficulty is to explain why it follows the equator almost perfectly. There are many hypotheses, but none explain why the ridge is confined to Cassini Regio. Theories include that the ridge is a remnant of Iapetus's oblate shape during its early life, that it was created by the collapse of a ring system, that it was formed by icy material welling from Iapetus's interior, or that it is a result of convective overturn.[43]
Exploration
The first spacecraft to visit Saturn, Pioneer 11, did not provide any images of Iapetus and it came no closer than 1,030,000 km (640,000 miles) from the moon.[45] Nonetheless, Pioneer 11 was humanity's first attempt to obtain direct measurements from the objects within the Saturnian system.
Voyager 1 arrived at Saturn on November 12, 1980, and it became the first probe to return pictures of Iapetus that clearly show the moon's two-tone appearance from a distance of 2,480,000 km (1,540,000 mi).[46] as it was exiting the Saturnian system.[47]
Voyager 2 became the next probe to visit Saturn on August 22, 1981, and made its closest approach to Iapetus at a distance of 909,000 km (565,000 mi). It took photos of Iapetus's north pole as it entered the Saturnian system - opposite the approach direction of Voyager 1.
The latest probe to visit Iapetus was the Cassini orbiter which went into orbit around Saturn starting on July 1, 2004.[49] Iapetus has been imaged many times from moderate distances by Cassini but its great distance from Saturn makes close observation difficult.
Cassini made its first targeted flyby of Iapetus on Dec. 31, 2004, at a distance of 123,400 km (76,700 mi) around the time when the spacecraft was settling in its orbit around Saturn.[50] Cassini did not crossed Iapetus's orbit when it flew by and remained inside the moon's orbit. Cassini's subsequent flybys of Titan would make the spacecraft's orbit smaller, preventing Cassini from flying close to Iapetus for months.
Cassini made a second flyby of Iapetus on November 12, 2005, at a distance of 415,000 km (258,000 mi),[51] also without crossing the moon's orbit.
Cassini then made a third and more distant flyby of Iapetus on January 22, 2006, at a distance of 1,300,000 km (810,000 mi).[52][53]
The fourth flyby happened on April 8, 2006, at a distance of approximately 866,000 km (538,000 mi), and this time, Cassini crossed Iapetus' orbit.[54] After this, Cassini's orbit was made smaller once again, preventing the probe from approaching Iapetus for more than a year this time.
Cassini's closest flyby of Iapetus happened on September 10, 2007, at a minimum range of 1,227 km (762 mi).[30] It approached Iapetus from its night side.[55]
After this encounter, Cassini made no further targeted flybys of Iapetus.
In popular culture
The monolith featured during the climax of Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey is located on Iapetus.
A team of scientists explore Iapetus in The Saturn Game, a science-fiction novella by Poul Anderson (1981).
The moon Iapetus is one of many galactic settings in the
Iapetus is also the setting for Czech writer Julie Nováková's story "The Long Iapetan Night", published in the November 2020 edition of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.[56]
Gallery
-
Iapetus seemingly in the shape of the famous Taijitu (also known as the Yin-Yang symbol). This was imaged by Voyager 1 on November 12, 1980.
-
Enhanced version of an image of Iapetus by Voyager 2. The left side of Iapetus in this image is its side that is always facing away from Saturn.[57]
-
An image of Iapetus from its nightside that was photographed by an approaching Cassini, showing it as a slender crescent with its massive equatorial ridge clearly visible at the middle. This image was taken on September 10, 2007 at a distance of 83,000 kilometers (51,600 miles).[59]
-
A super-close image of Iapetus's transition area between its light and dark side, showing white materials sharply spattering into the dark materials. Imaged by Cassini on September 10, 2007 at a distance of 9,240 kilometers (5740 miles) somewhere in the area of the Carassone Montes.[60]
-
A much clearer image of Iapetus's Taijitu (Yin-Yang) appearance, taken by Cassini on August 30, 2013 from a distance of 2.5 million kilometers (1.5 million miles). The crater near the terminator at the lower center is Ganelon.
See also
- Former classification of planets
- Iapetus in fiction
- List of tallest mountains in the Solar System
- Lists of astronomical objects
- Subsatellite
Notes
- ^ The moons more massive than Iapetus are: the Moon, the 4 Galilean moons (Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa), Titan, Rhea, Titania, Oberon, and Triton.[9]
References
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External links
- Cassini mission page – Iapetus
- Discussion of Iapetus dated October 2007
- Iapetus Profile at NASA's Solar System Exploration site
- The Planetary Society: Iapetus
- Google Iapetus 3D, interactive map of the moon
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Saturn's Iapetus: Moon with a Strange Surface (1 February 2005)
- Mirror Objects in the Solar System?—refereed article discussing the speculative mirror matter, and Iapetus in this context
- A Moon with a View—Richard C. Hoagland's imaginative discussion of Iapetus's oddities
- New attempts to crack Saturn's 'walnut' moon—equatorial ridge formation theories
- Cassini images of Iapetus Archived 2011-07-25 at the Wayback Machine
- Images of Iapetus at JPL's Planetary Photojournal
- Movie of Iapetus's rotation at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site
- Iapetus basemap (May 2008) from Cassini images Archived 2010-02-17 at the Wayback Machine
- Iapetus atlas (October 2008) from Cassini images
- Iapetus nomenclature and Iapetus map with feature names from the USGS planetary nomenclature page
- Flight over Iapetus (video)