Saturday, January 15, 2005
09:26 PM
maybe tis a toye

Saturn's moon looks like hollow plastic toy: "Mark Frauenfelder:


Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons, has a 'topographic ridge that coincides almost exactly with the geographic equator,' giving it the look of a cheap plastic toy with mold flash.

The ridge is conspicuous in the picture as an approximately 20-kilometer wide (12 miles) band that extends from the western (left) side of the disc almost to the day/night boundary on the right. On the left horizon, the peak of the ridge reaches at least 13 kilometers (8 miles) above the surrounding terrain. Along the roughly 1,300 kilometer (800 mile) length over which it can be traced in this picture, it remains almost exactly parallel to the equator within a couple of degrees.'

Link"

(Via Boing Boing.)