Roncevaux Terra is the name given to the highly reflective side of Saturn's moon Iapetus. The other half of Iapetus, named Cassini Regio, is extremely dark. It is believed that Roncevaux Terra is the underlying colour of Iapetus, while Cassini Regio was formed either by a substance that has covered up the brighter ice of the rest of the moon, or by a residue left from the sublimation of Roncevaux-type water ice. For more details, see the main article on Iapetus.
Roncevaux Terra is named after the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, subject of the French poem the Chanson de Roland, after whose characters the surface features of Iapetus are named. "Terra" is a term used in planetary geology to refer to extensive landmasses.
The largest named crater in the terra is the 504-km-diameter Engelier. It partially obscures the slightly smaller crater Gerin. Both craters are named for paladins mentioned in the Chanson de Roland.
Famous quotes containing the word terra:
“A book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those who have never been out of sight of land. They must not yield wheat and potatoes, but must themselves be the unconstrained and natural harvest of their author’s lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)