Saturn's moon Iapetus is an artificial construct!!

[Peter Ahlstrom]

This is a very cool website with some rather astounding images from the Cassini probe.

This two-colored moon that Clarke wrote about in 2001 has a 12-mile high, 12-mile wide "wall" spanning the hemisphere in the exact center of the dark area.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/images_v2/Iapetus/Iapetus-Color-High-Res.jpg

And there are features that look like the ruins of an ancient civilization.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/images_v2/Iapetus/Iapetus-Architecture8.jpg

[Harbinger]

That's no moon. That's a space station!

[Fellfrosch]

Whoa, those are some crazy pictures.

[Spriggan]

It's also been soo proven to be fake.  It's a very fun read though.  The reason you get the ruins and like are due to pixelization when you zoom into something and then apply filters in photoshop (ie sharpen) to try and clear it up.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/links.html

My favorite Hoagland picture is Nazi artifacts on mars http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/s_howitzer.jpg

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Sharpening artifacts regardless, the perfectly straight mountain range is pretty impressive. I don't know of any other large-scale features in nature that are so straight.

The website says some really wacky stuff, but I'll be very interested to see the higher-res images from Cassini's close flyby in late 2007.

[FirstMateJack]

Kinda reminds me of the "rabbit" they found on Mars. Anyone else see this?


http://www.weirdload.com/nasa-shame.html

This site here is a pretty cool place to go for the less......I suppose the best phrase would be, quick-to-assume-life-everywhere-else type answers to most these questions.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/bunny.html

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Okay, I found somewhere else that pointed out that accretion disks--rings like Saturn's rings--are straight, and that Iapetus' straight mountain range at the equator could come from a ring settling out under low gravity.

[Fellfrosch]

Interesting. I still like the theory that it's a weld line, but this makes a lot more sense.

[FirstMateJack]

Weld line? I think it is a cancer.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

It's a "spare tire." Iapetus really needs to lose weight.

[FirstMateJack]

It's really two gigantic coconuts glued together..poorly.