On Sept. 10, the Cassini spacecraft performs its closest flyby during the entire mission of the odd moon Iapetus, passing by about 1,640 kilometers. The moon is somewhat further out than most of the others, so despite the fact that Cassini has many months if not years in front of it still, the moon is too out-of-the-way to be making any additional passes. Who knows when another spacecraft will be this close again? Hope its a good look… it will have to last.
I made this “close to true color” image from the raw files using the BLU, IR1 and GRE filters. The distance seen here is approximately 694,000 kilometers.