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This Little Known Moon Has One Of The Oddest Features In The Solar System
Scientists still don’t know how it formed
Orbiting in the darkness of the solar system is a moon known as Iapetus. It is not a name that many people are familiar with. Iapetus is the third largest moon in orbit around Saturn and the eleventh largest moon in the system. For the longest time, scientists could not find anything special about the lonely rock other than its size.
That all changed in 2004 when NASA obtained detailed images of the moon from the Cassini mission. Up close, Iapetus was remarkable. It was odd, mysterious, and featured some of the weirdest things astronomers have ever discovered in our solar system.
Small oddities
Before the Cassini mission unveiled some of the largest mysteries on Iapetus, the moon was already home to some other strange occurrences. First, the moon is two-toned. It has a distinctive contrast in colors not often seen in moons of this type. Theories about colorization are connected to another interesting fact about Iapetus.
There is evidence of water ice and some liquid water on the moon. There is some evidence to suggest that water ice has migrated around the moon at some point in its history. The dual tones of the moon can be plausibly…
