The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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One hemisphere of Iapetus is very dark, while the other is very bright. Whether the moon is being coated by foreign material or being resurfaced by material from within is not yet known.
Its diameter is about one third that of our own Moon at 1436 kilometres. The latest image was taken in visible light with the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 3 July 2004, from a distance of 3 million kilometres.
The image scale is 18 kilometres per pixel. The image was magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.