A wizard did it.

I have no idea and I was busy that night.

*shifty eyes*

Something something something your mom

Obviously, on the seventh day, God kicked back with a scotch on the rocks.

I thought the monolith did it when it arrived in order to make Iapetus a giant sign screaming "Look here!"

I'm having a hard time accepting that its melded moon pieces.....

They need do way instain gravity...

Because everything about Saturn is different. It's the hipster of planets.

J. Frank Parnell: Because everything about Saturn is different. It's the hipster of planets.

theorellior: J. Frank Parnell: Because everything about Saturn is different. It's the hipster of planets.

[a2.twimg.com image 500x375]

Surface life is old hat, man. I mean, it was cool when Mars did it. Everyone was very impressed. Then Earth tried to do the same thing, but everyone knew it was just biting Mars' style.

The new hotness is living inside planets. Don't have to worry about the sun messing with your DNA, and the weather can do whatever the hell it pleases. Even an ice age or mass extinction from a meteor strike is no big deal. Those are all lowly surface dweller problems.

theorellior: I thought the monolith did it when it arrived in order to make Iapetus a giant sign screaming "Look here!"

Came to post this.

The book said Iapetus, not Europa.

Brandon the Builder?

Mad_Radhu: Brandon the Builder?

I guess the Others lived in the northern hemisphere, then.

I assumed it was a honking big mass driver round that missed the Reaper it was aimed at.

/and that is why Sir Isaac Newton is the baddest motherf*cker in the galaxy.

I'm not saying aliens...

How do they expect to keep the White Walkers in the north if the wall only goes three-quarters of the way round?

This guy knows: http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon3.htm

So Iapetus has a muffin top?

Sorry everyone. My bad. That was me.

Zeppelininthesky: This guy knows: http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon3.htm

Thanks for the fun link.



I was thinking more like a cosmic walnut. Would make sense if it was formed of two hollow spheres joined at the center.

half-spheres or whatever

Sgygus: When Iapetus first formed, it was like a hot souffle. When it cooled, it shrunk and pooched out around the middle.

/don't open the oven until it is cooked

More like a hot puri (new window).

It's just the planet Rhodesia.

Whar Big Hair Aliens Guy?

Whar?

Mad Canadian: Whar Big Hair Aliens Guy?

Whar?

Thar.



Thar Big Hair Aliens Guy.

Thar thread.

I'd like a better explanation of the hexagon on saturn's north pole...

I'm not saying it could be aliens, but aliens.

When planetary bodies (spheroidal) form the friction from infall heats them considerably to melting, and the relative motion of the infalling material creates the spin. If the coefficient of thermal expansion of the composition is sufficiently high, the spheroid will shrink quite a bit as it cools. Naturally these bodies cool from the outside in, so a solid crust that's quite thick forms first. At some point thereafter the internal shrinkage occurs with internal cooling, and gravity demands that this solid crust take a new smaller shape.

Since the crust will be slightly warmer at the equator due to insolation and also tending to be under slightly less apparent gravity due to centripetal force, the "polar shells" will be thicker and so of higher mechanical integrity and it is natural that an equatorial ridge will form under certain conditions relating to the relationship between the coefficient of thermal expansion of the mass, the initial temperature of the body, the surface area and the thermal conductivity of the material. This is not the only such equatorial ridge (new window) in our solar system. In addition to Saturn's moons, which also have equatorial uplift due to Saturn's gravity, at least one asteroid (new window) has one that I know of, and probably many more. In the theoretical case of a body without insolation and spin, absent a nearby gravity and with a high coefficient of thermal expansion you could expect more of an orange peel or baked clay look suggesting perhaps a soccer ball. In a tidally locked body maybe something suggesting a pear with the stem end pointing at the larger body and the slices occurring on planes containing the axis from the stem outward from that body, fairly regularly spaced.

There's nothing odd about this at all. We don't see this on larger planets because the higher gravitational forces pull the ridge back down (the increased vertical pressure melts the material under the ridge) - though there is some swelling at the equator even on Earth even now. The Earth hasn't really cooled enough yet for the effect to occur though - our mantle is still fairly plastic, and the rock-hard surface we see is thinner than the skin of a grape relatively speaking. But regardless, bodies over a certain mass won't see the effect. Bodies that are still molten like Io won't see it. Our moon, for example, is either too large for this or has too low a coefficient of thermal expansion. It has an equatorial bulge, but not a ridge.

Bodies with a low coefficient of thermal expansion don't see this effect either because they don't get much smaller as they cool. Naturally gas giants don't. So really there aren't that many planetary bodies in the solar system that could see the effect, have cooled, and we don't see it - and their composition or current temperature could explain the lack.

It's pretty simple really. The neat thing is that the size of the ridges tells us a lot about both the initial temperature and the internal composition.

andrewagill: Europa

And Jupiter, not Saturn.

Lapidus!

Link (new window)

I bet it came from beer.

/gonna call my middle the equatorial ridge from now on.

This is what happens when your space elevator collapses, and it wraps itself several time around your planet.

IC Stars: This is what happens when your space elevator collapses, and it wraps itself several time around your planet.

Nuh-uh. When that happens you get diamonds and put Debeers out of business.

/doubts that's obscure on this thread...

We have enough problems here on Earth. Why would we be concerned about how some moon formed that we will never really see or go to? More energy needs to be spent on perfecting perpetual motion machines, not this crap.

IC Stars: This is what happens when your space elevator collapses, and it wraps itself several time around your planet.

Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars?

It's the Continental Divide. Duh.