Titanic Avalanches on Saturn’s Moon

Written by The Night Sky Guy on August 2, 2012 – 1:12 pm -

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has spied the aftermath of 30 giant ice falls on Saturn’s moon Iapetus which may offer a unique insight to mechanics of landslides on Earth , according to a new study.

Sporting steep crater walls and a unique 12 mile high mountain ridge – more than twice the height of Mount Everest – that runs nearly the entire length of its equator, Iapetus has nearly a perfect setup for avalanches, says Kelsi Singer, the lead author of the new study published in Nature Geoscience this week.

Read more about these awesome events of nature on a scale never before seen and learn how they may help unlock clues to their Earthly counterparts at National Geographic News


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