Equatorial ridge on Iapetus
ridge running along most of Iapetus' equator
Iapetus, Saturn's third-largest moon, has a 20 kilometer (12 mi) tall equatorial ridge. The ridge runs along most of Iapetus's equator, and is the third tallest mountain structure in the Solar System. First discovered by the Cassini probe in 2004, the ridge's origin is unknown. The equatorial ridge is split into three mountain ranges, Carcassone Montes, Toledo Montes, and Tortelosa Montes. There are bright areas on the sides of the equatorial ridge near Iapetus' bright trailing hemisphere, which were visible in Voyager 2 and were nicknamed the "Voyager Mountains"; they were eventually formally named Carcassone Montes.
Discovery
Iapetus's equatorial ridge was discovered when the Cassini spacecraft imaged Iapetus on 31 December 2004. Peaks in the ridge rise more than 20 km above the surrounding plains, making them some of the tallest mountains in the Solar System. The ridge forms a complex system including isolated peaks, segments of more than 200 km and sections with three near parallel ridges.
Origins
Within the bright regions there is no ridge, but there are a series of isolated 10 km peaks along the equator. The ridge system is heavily cratered, indicating that it is ancient.
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This entry incorporates text from “Equatorial ridge on Iapetus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.