Is Iapetus artificial?

[blobrana]

[cecilia]

this is like the "face" om mars. when you get closer, you see it's just an illusion (not that i was surprised, of course - i know how the human mind looks for patterns)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

what a load of bullcrap that site is

VERY vague suggestions of the planet being 'made of hexadiagonals' (that crater hexadiagonal? Hardly. Okay, tis not completely round like other craters but that can be caused by the previous craters, the substance/shape of the meteorite, and the substance of the moon, like Blob said).
Just picking one suggestive photo of a sunset of the moon? Come on! Put that plastic glue bag away!
Okay the moon has a extraordinary line on it's surface, and I'm eager to know the cause of that. But not by that 'factual' site.
It's just laughable.

[Karlos]

Perhaps the subject should be "is the author of this article certifiable?"

[Karlos]

falemagn wrote:

I've never seen enough examples of this phenomenon to know if nested hexagons are possible or not...

There's no reason for which crust expanding and shrinking should produce hexagons, yet alone nested ones.

Correction. There's no known / immediately obvious reason. That doesn't mean they are not natural.

[blobrana]

Hum,
your wish is my command...




"sometimes we all do mad things" - Sigmund Freud

[Karlos]

blobrana wrote:
Hum,
your wish is my command...

O_o

You'd better be careful who you say that two round these parts, pet :lol:

[blobrana]

@Karlos

Hum,
>>Correction. There's no known / immediately obvious reason.


I suppose that hexagonal patterns are very common in nature;
 And when things go through a melt/freeze cycle they do seem to appear...
Examples would be things like basaltic lava pillars.
But the crater shapes are intriguing; we haven’t seen anything like them, er, apart from the large crater of J. Herschel on our moon, which has hexagon shape.

I suppose we`ll have to wait for the next flyby (sept 2007)

[color=ff00ff][/color]
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/
(er, for the amusement of those that arn`t aware)
[color=ff00ff][/color]

@PMC
Oh, i`ve been playing `sims2`....

[falemagn]

blobrana wrote:
@Karlos

Hum,
>>Correction. There's no known / immediately obvious reason.


I suppose that hexagonal patterns are very common in nature;
 And when things go through a melt/freeze cycle they do seem to appear...
Examples would be things like basaltic lava pillars.

That's an entirely different process, and moreover at an entirely different scale! The pictures you've looked at are the ones of a moon with the diameter of 1496 kilometers, that one you see is an hexagon that spans hundred of kilometers! There are other hexagons on other parts of the moon that are of the same size, placed at the same distannce from each other on a line parallel to the ridge and to the equator.

We've never seen something like this in nature, and it's questionable whether it could ever happen.

"But we can't say for sure," I hear you. I'd say that if this were a natural phenomenon we should have plenty of examples around us to testify that. But we don't. It may still be a natural phenomenon, but then I'm eager to hear a plausible explanation. I mean, more plausible than that thing being an artificial object.

Because you can't just say "oh, I suppose if it freezes, if it resolidifies, if an asteroid hit the thing and split it in two and then it got back together and then ..." hey hey hey... stop your imagination, ever heard of Occam's Razor? What are the odds of all that happening? What are the odds that an asteroid hit the moon with a so big a force to split it perfectly evenly in two parts, dividing it right at the equator and yet the moon itself didn't break into billions of pieces? And then what kind of process, I mean for real, would have caused the ridge? And how do you explain the moon doesn't look spherical by any stretch of imagination and the fact it has straight edges?

Perhaps actually reading that site, to see which explanation s Hoagland tries to give to the phenomenon, and then counterargument them would be a better approach.

Because right now, Hoagland's explanation sounds the most plausible one, if a bit stretched. You won't debunk Hoagland by criticizing his person, you'll do it by counterargumenting his points. And I don't mean you personally, but 'you' as in everyone who didn't even care to read the site or look at the picture with a critic eye.

But the crater shapes are intriguing; we haven’t seen anything like them, er, apart from the large crater of J. Herschel on our moon, which has hexagon shape.

It looks quite round to me, with the exception of the bottom-right part which is kind of straight.

For that crater it's easier to find a natural explanation.

I suppose we`ll have to wait for the next flyby (sept 2007)

Unfortunately, as you can read in part 3 of Hoagland's report, the next flyby will happen from a different perspective, basically excluding the possibility of confirming/denying the proposed theory about the observed objects on the moon. Hopefully, since it will be a lot closer than before, it will be spossible to spot other things more precisely.

[Karlos]

falemagn wrote:

Unfortunately, as you can read in part 3 of Hoagland's report, the next flyby will happen from a different perspective, basically excluding the possibility of confirming/denying the proposed theory about the observed objects on the moon. Hopefully, since it will be a lot closer than before, it will be spossible to spot other things more precisely.

I expect the mission planners have more important things to worry about than appeasing Hoaglands paranoia :-)

[blobrana]

Re: "It may still be a natural phenomenon, but then I'm eager to hear a plausible explanation. I mean, more plausible than that thing being an artificial object."


Hum,
Well, we don’t know the exactly process that created those features.
But undoubtedly they are natural features, imho.
(perhaps it’s just my pagan upbringing, but i my reality must be quite different from yours. )

And ignore  Hoagland;  i would personally class him as a conman, who takes advantage of those who are  scientifically disadvantaged...

My brain is too small to fit in all the wonderous ideas and facts out there, to bother with Hoagwash...

[falemagn]

um,
Well, we don’t know the exactly process that created those features.
But undoubtedly they are natural features, imho.

Objectively speaking, what's better, a torough explanation of the reasoning behind a certain hypothesis, for how 'alternative' it may sound, or a dogmatic "undoubtly, it's as I say it is"?

I haven't seen you counterargumenting his points, probably because you're too convinced of your own opinions that can't even bother to check whether they're right or not.

(perhaps it’s just my pagan upbringing, but i my reality must be quit different from yours. )

My reality is the one I see with my own eyes, and with my own eyes I see something I can't explain as a natural process.

And I haven't seen you explaining it either.

And ignore Hoagland; i would personally class him as a conman, who takes advantage of those who are scientifically disadvantaged...

See, that's what I mean. You didn't even bother to read what he wrote, because it must be rubbish, must not it?

Sorry, but I'll take what anyone cares to argument and question, and seems even remotely plausible to me, over what someone else takes for granted.

That's what scientifically educated people should do. Dogmas are for religion, scientists ask themselves questions, and seek for plausible and replicable answers.

A moon splitting itself in two, right at equator, then rejoining, then melting/freezing who knows how many times, then producing for that reason hexagonal patterns large hundred of kilometers (I'd like you to explain the exact process of that), is as likely as the whole universe collapsing right now as I'm writing.


---- EDIT ----

Seriously, re-reading that hypothesis of yours, I wonder where you took it from and why does it somewhat sound more plausible to you than that moon being artificial.

The odds that another civilization was in this solar system before us are the same as the ones for us being here right now. Quite likely, I'd say. For what we all know, it could be us who placed that thing there, eons ago. Yes, this is pure science fiction, but consider the possibilities of this being true vs the ones of your scenario... We have tons of myths spread among the thousand of different cultures all around our globe which share the same fundations; We have references to Atlantis from Plato, we have mysterious artifacts found all around the globe which are still now unexplained and that official science seems to have forgotten.

You need to put all pieces together to complete the puzzle, and you can't cheat. You can't pretend some things don't exist just because they don't fit your model, you need to make a model that fits all things you've discovered.

Unfortunately science is a form of religion for many people. They often say they have no god, but their god is the science itself, and anything that doesn't fit the dogmatic view imposed to them by their predecessors is 'heretic'.

Science should be all about having open minds, evaluating all kind of possibilities, not forgetting any details and developing comphrensive models. Unfortunately, it's not like that.

Mind you, this rant is a general one, not geared torward the particular topic at hand. Coming back to the original topic, whether Iapetus is artificial or not I don't know, but as of now any proof that it's natural is lacking, and all clues point to it being artificial. In the end we may discover it's as natural as a {bleep}ball, but right now that's not the case.

[blobrana]

lol,
The probability that six faults line up to form a hexagon and a meteorite collides directly into the centre of the configuration or a natural melt/freeze/remelt warping the crust seems far likelier to me, than an advanced civilization constructing the moon.

There is nothing wrong with speculation or even `thought experiments`, it’s human nature.
 
i watch star trek, and i can imagine travelling on a light beam, I’ve even read some `Von Danaken` books; they are mind food, but they don’t really tell us anything about the nature of the universe.

Hoagwash is dangerous.

We know how to deal with bad science here.

[Karlos]

falemagn wrote:

Mind you, this rant is a general one, not geared torward the particular topic at hand. Coming back to the original topic, whether Iapetus is artificial or not I don't know, but as of now any proof that it's natural is lacking, and all clues point to it being artificial. In the end we may discover it's as natural as a {bleep}ball, but right now that's not the case.

OK.

Q1) Does it look artificial?

At best, I can say objectively that some of the features appear unnatural.

Q2) Does an artificial appearence prove artificial nature?

Certianly not. There are a virtually uncountable number of natural systes that appear artificial at all scales.

Q3) Is there any tangible evidence to suggest that the moon in question is artificial in nature other than  its appearence.

Not yet.

Q4) Is there any evidence that is is a natural object, discounting its unusual appearence?

Yes, everything available other than the appearence seems to be well within the known boundaries for an ice moon.

[falemagn]

 lol,
The probability that six faults line up to form a hexagon and a meteorite collides directly into the centre of the configuration or a natural melt/freeze/remelt warping the crust seems far likelier to me, than an advanced civilization constructing the moon.

lol indeed. How come you always seem to forget all other details? What about the nested hexagons? What about the other hexagons linearly equidistantiated and parallel to the equator? What about the ridge? What about the moon non-spherical and geodesic shape?

See, you forget those 'details' because they don't fit your model. You need to make a model that fits all of them. Can you?

[PMC]

Just because the phenomena is unexplained doesn't make it artificial.

Don't forget that Iapetus's distance from the warming sun means that it's icy crust will retain the scars of it's early meteoric bombardment, plus it will also have been subjected to gravitational distortion from Saturn.  

An example of a naturally occurring hexidecimal shape can be found inside any Amythist bearing geode stone, no-one would suggest that is anything other than naturally occurring?