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I'm sure everyone here is excited about the recent discovery of water on Enceledus. Cassini has done an excellent job at revealing the secrets of the ring world Saturn.

Not only did it discover some water, it also discovered this weird looking gem



This is Iapetus, and this is an unedited picture of it taken by our wonderful little probe.

I know what your thinking, it's kinda weird looking. It has that ridge extending all the way across the planet which so happens to be not too far from the equator, and it's a mighty 12 miles high. It also has the crater, which so happens to look like some sort of weird dish.

Many theories have been made as an attempt to describe what has happened here, everything from two moons slamming together, weird geological activity, or George Lucas's new headquarters built by his fanatical fans.

Make sure to keep track of Cassini's progress, in 2007 it's supposed to get closer to the planet and take even better pictures of this bizarre object. So we have a death star and a bunch of moons that kinda resemble Hoth, I wonder if we can find a forest moon?

Feel free to comment, discuss, whatever.

EDIT: Cassini didn't actually discover the moon, it only discovered the features on it.

The moon was actually obsevered well before Cassini in the 16th century, known for "winking" at astronomers by appearing visible only on one side of jupiter if viewed from the earth. When it's on the other side the sun is no longer shining on the moon making it invisible to earthbound astronomers.

Kinda like our moon and how we can never see the dark side from earth.

whoa, yeah, I think you won.

It looks exactly like the death star, only with craters.

It's this wierd looking space station from the popular sci-fi movie trilogy Star Wars that resembled a moon.

ooo, I didn't know that about Iapetus. That's interesting. 3nodding

lol yea Mimas is definatly the death star of the solar system. xd I remember in my astro class when we were learning about the gas giant and their moons, my prof made that same joke. lol

What, you don't love both.

Cassini's so cool, I'd marry him except I just don't work that way, we're just good friends.

He discovered the great red spot on jupiter and was the first to observe 4 of Saturn's Moons.

He also worked as an engineer, building fortifications and such.

He's known for many other astronomical achievements, but they're not as recognized as the two listed.

lol indeed. blaugh