| As early as its discovery in 1671, Iapetus' albedo dichotomy has raised several questions regarding its origins and morphology within the scientific community. Since macroscopic features of topography alter the scattering properties of a planetary surface, we apply a surface roughness model developed by Buratti and Veverka in 1985 to Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem data from the January 1st, 2005 flyby of Iapetus. This model uses the observed scattering behavior to provide a depth to radius factor q quantifying the size of craters on the surface. Relative surface roughness of the low albedo (leading) hemisphere and high albedo (trailing) hemisphere is then determined by comparing the two values. Our findings show marked differences in macroscopic roughness between the 2 sides, indicating that the surface on the dark side is much smoother than the bright. |
