Austin+blog+1

==== Space! We are finally here! My crew and I have finally reached the third largest moon of Saturn, Iapetus. It was a nerve racking journey, but we made it! Now, we can continue our research with more ease now that we know one of the most dangerous parts of the journey is over. I, Astronaut Austin Stelmach, am in charge of our crew’s destination research. I have used the past several weeks on Iapetus to record and estimate the mass, diameter and rotation/revolution of Iapetus. ==== ==== Iapetus is Saturn’s third largest moon and has a mass of 1.88E+21(kg) and a diameter of 1471 kilometers (or 914 miles), which is about the distance between Iowa and Pennsylvania. It takes Iapetus about 79 days or longer to complete a full 360 degree rotation. On our mission we have concluded that one side of Iapetus has a much darker hemisphere than the other. This could possibly be because the dark side of Iapetus is collecting up particles from one of Saturn’s darker moons, Phoebe. This could also be happening because of solar radiation causing volcanic-like explosions of hydrocarbon. ====