![]() ![]() Like most moons in the outer solar system, Iapetus is composed mostly of ice, with about 75% of the moon being water ice. The orbital period of Iapetus is the same as its rotational period of 79 days. At such a vast distance from Saturn, it takes Iapetus 79 days to complete one orbit. ![]() Iapetus orbits Saturn at a fairly large distance, averaging at 2.2 million miles (3.5 million kilometres). Iapetus is the third largest moon of Saturn with a diameter of 913 miles (1,469 kilometres). After many billions of years, we end up with a moon whose two hemispheres look like total opposites. Over the course of many millions of years, the darker side absorbed more sunlight and got even darker, meanwhile the bright side only got brighter. The two hemispheres may have once looked similar, with one side being only slightly darker than the other. This sublimation has resulted in the darker side getting darker and the brighter side getting brighter. This heating of the darker area causes any ice there to sublime out, eventually retreating to the colder side of the moon. The length of its temperature cycles allows the darker region to absorb more sunlight and become noticeably warmer than the brighter hemisphere. A very talented student from our summer camp class doing role play and telling us interesting facts about the planet Saturn. Like Pan, Atlas has a distinctive flying saucer shape created by a prominent equatorial ridge not seen on the other small moons of Saturn. With such a slow rotation, Iapetus also experiences long cycles in its surface temperature. Atlas is an inner moon of Saturn, orbiting around the outer edge of Saturns A Ring. When you see some misinformation online, bypassing it with separate facts and figures. ![]() Iapetus has a fairly long rotation, with the moon taking approximately 79 days to rotate once. NASA testing robot snake EELS to explore oceans on Saturns moon. It is very likely that thermal segregation is responsible for the dark material on Iapetus. It was named after the Atlas in Greek mythology. In 2007, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft discovered a new, more likely explanation. It was discovered by Richard Terrile from photos taken by Voyager 1 in 1980. Volcanic eruptions could also supply darker materials by ejecting vast amounts of hydrocarbons onto the surface as well. Another explanation is that there might be ice volcanoes on Iapetus that have distributed darker material. If Iapetus formed with its two contrasting hemispheres, we would expect newly formed craters to be brighter or darker depending on what hemisphere they are on, yet craters on the dark hemisphere are also dark, which suggests that the material is being renewed over time. If this hypothesis is true, then the dark material is constantly being renewed over time, which could explain the lack of bright impact craters. Iapetus may be sweeping up darker particles from another nearby moon called Phoebe. Scientists have proposed numerous explanations. For a listing of all moons, see Moons of the Planets. Its unusual shape comes from ring dust particles that impact it's equatorial region as it orbits within the Roche Division. Since Giovanni Cassini first discovered Iapetus, scientists have wondered why the moon has a bright side and a dark side. Atlas is a small moon near the A Ring of planet Saturn. Thats about as much weight as 10 school buses. Atlas is a moon that orbits the planet Saturn and has a surface area of 2,865.26 and semi-major axis of 137.67. Saturns moons were thrust into the spotlight during the Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 flybys in the 1970s and 1980s, but it wasnt until NASAs Cassini mission reached. It could launch about 118,000 kilograms (130 tons) into Earth orbit. Likewise, km^2 refers to the object's height and width.The Two Sides Of Iapetus Images of the two hemispheres of Iapetus placed together to illustrate the difference in brightness. A car that gets 48 kilometers (30 miles) to the gallon could drive around the world around 800 times with the amount of fuel the Saturn V used for a lunar landing mission. It refers to the object's size, height, width and depth. The orbital eccentricity is 0.0012, the degree at which Atlas orbits close to a circular (0) orbit as opposed to an elliptical (1).Īs someone asked me to clarify what km^3 means, it means Kilometers Cubed, i.e. The orbital inclination, the angle at which Atlas orbits to the orbital plane, is 0.3 degrees. ![]()
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