SUMMARY: NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its closest approach to Saturn's moon Iapetus on New Year's Eve, passing only 123,400 km (76,700 miles) away. Iapetus is best known for its strange two-toned colour, and it's also been called the "Yin Yang Moon" - one hemisphere is completely dark, and the other is white. At 1,400 km (890 miles) across, it's Saturn's third largest moon, and it was originally discovered by Jean-Dominique Cassini in 1672 who actually deduced that one side of the moon was dark, and the other bright. Cassini will make another 13 close encounters with Saturn's moons during 2005, 8 of which will be past Titan.

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