Bizarre boulders litter Saturn moon's icy surface

[Kyrisch]

The Cassini spacecraft has coasted to its closest encounter yet - skimming just 175 kilometres above Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. But astronomers are at a loss to explain its observations.

 

On 14 July, Cassini swooped in for an unprecedented close-up view of the wrinkled moon. Its Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) camera has since returned pictures of a boulder-strewn landscape that is currently beyond explanation. The "boulders" appear to range between 10 and 20 metres in diameter in the highest-resolution images, which can resolve features just 4 m across...

 

Pictures and more at: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7692

[Kermit]

Wow! Boulders!

[jutntog1]

my thoughts exactly...

 

does it mean anything relivent or is it just an intresting piece of trivia?

[Scootie]

If I can remember back to 9th grade earth science, rocks and boulders come from erosion of solid rock. That solid rock came from other solid rock that was eroded and dropped of as sediments, say at the bottom of a stream. SO if there are boulders there must have been erosion of some kind. This means there could be an atmosphere and weather and water and LIFE!!!

 

.....right?

 

Thats my idea any how

[jutntog1]

whether or not thats acurate, at least you have added some meanign to this discusion

[AzurePhoenix]

Boulders can also be a result of volcanic activity.

[Kermit]

Boulders can also be a result of volcanic activity.

 

Oh. Wow. Volcanoes.

 

But besides.. if indeed there is life there, and all we can see is boulders, that means that life there is simplistic bacteria or just too small to be seen easily. Or maybe life indeed does exist in an advance state and there's a race of advanced mole men waiting for their revenge on the boulders!

[AzurePhoenix]

Oh. Wow. Volcanoes.

As strongly as I might support the Mole Man idea, I'm just saying people shouldn't get worked up over things that could have perfectly mundane explanations. Although, from a geo-astronomical standpoint or whatever, volcanoes are a big deal.