16 December 2010

Strange landscapes of the outer giants’ moons

Kansas might be flatter than a pancake, but some of the moons circling Jupiter and Saturn are not. The relatively tiny, icy, rocky moons of the outer solar system host a gigantic array of interesting surface features. Some are more exotic, like the measured, undulating ridges on Ganymede and the cratered ruins blanketing Callisto, both moons of Jupiter. And some make the leap to the truly bizarre: enormous mountains encircling the equator of Saturn’s Iapetus, the likes of which have not been observed elsewhere.

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