Is Iapetus artificial?

[blobrana]

Hum,
Well the hexagonal craters are unusual, (nasa has noticed as well), though a crust cracking and shrinking will account for them, and the unusual ridge.
(A large impact would partially melt the interior)





[ And before anyone says; the monolith was a rectangle... ]

[blobrana]

[blobrana]

Hum,
your wish is my command...




"sometimes we all do mad things" - Sigmund Freud

[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`....

[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...

[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.

[blobrana]

Yes,
i believe nasa is working on the mechanism that would create the unusual features they have spotted.

it reminds me of the unusual properties found when Iapetus was first observed in detail; that one face was as white as snow and the other face was back as tar.
(that gave the A C Clarke 2001 story line of the `eye of Iapetus` and the monolith at its centre.)
it was found that the spectra of the dark side matched the asteroids and that the moons rotation is phase-locked with its revolution, so that it swept up the debris of the impacts on the other moons...

A simpler explanation than an advanced civilisation painting one side of the moon black.
 :-)

[blobrana]

@Karlos
I had a quick around the internet but there doesn’t seem to be any info on the mechanics of crater formation regarding the unusual shapes, and NASA says they are “impact-substrate related”.
Not my field, so I guess it’s like some chaotic geological/impact interaction.
i.e.
nice example of slow motion photography of a milkdrop.


And I managed to find another impact crater, Albategnius, located in the Moons central highlands.

[blobrana]

:lol:



"That's no moon..." - Kenobi  

[blobrana]

Hum,
The good old Arecibo Observatory comes to the rescue...

"We’re being scanned"

[blobrana]

Hum,
Ice boulders...