Dark-stained Iapetus

Images of Saturn's moon Iapetus taken with infrared (centred at 930 nanometres), green (568 nanometres), and ultraviolet light (338 nanometres) filters were combined to create this image.

The use of colour on Iapetus is particularly helpful for discriminating between shadows (which appear black) and the intrinsically dark terrain (which appears brownish).

The view was obtained with the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini narrow-angle camera on 31 December 2004, at a distance of about 172,900 kilometres from Iapetus. Resolution achieved in the original image was 1 kilometre per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility of surface features.