Oh they do a fair job with the spin-control on Fundamentalist’s basic misinterpretations of Moses’ words about our arguable ‘creation’ origins. They use abject ridicule like a broad-sword to smite the old-school thinking bible thumpers as if it was some sign of high intellect and not just high school bully tactics.

I find it difficult to understand why people like Phil can not keep an open-mind to alternative theories to his form of religion. Science today is a religion. Believe it or not there is a hard scientific angle to the bible record too. Its just that the Fundamentalists are not equipped for the task. They are like children who lack understanding. Of course the Earth is billions of years old. Of course Iapetus may be too. By all “known” data about the metaphysical supernatural beings (aka God’s spiritual sons?) they too are billions of years old too.

So just maybe the “ET” life that Hoagland and others are referring to are in fact THEM and not the fantastical beings you refuse to believe could ever exist. Darwinism is illogical as it does not take into account a grand supernatural architect. Logic would dictate that our existence is far too complex for random chaotic origins and slow evolutionary changing from Simians to humans who can land a space ship on the Martian north pole just yesterday. That’s a “no brainer”!

Hoagland in my humble opinion is a complicated man. He is conflicted between Creationism and Darwinism. I believe he has low self esteem issues as he feels he needs to fabricated biographical data about his past. He is not a NASA engineer. He was never curator at the Quadrangle in Springfield, MA, and he never produced a radio program in Hartford CT. I know as I live there. Walter Cronkite thinks he’s a “kook”.

But Hoagland’s theories have merit. Don’t reject them so quickly. Remember the late Arthur C. Clarke was right about things you use and take for granted everyday - satellites!

Hoagland may be a bit undereducated and unrefined in his speaking style. He may jump to conclusions without explaining his theories (i.e. hyper-dimensional energy?) but don’t throw out the baby with the bath water just yet. His theories about Mars and artificiality may prove quite amazing to you soon enough. Remember Percival Lowell, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli, and the Royal British Academy were all doing similar prognostications during the last turn of the century but were shouted down by the ridicule of the anti-ID masses of the day.

Iapetus’ ridge may be artificial IMHO. But not based on what Hoagland says. It could be related to something else equally as baffling (arguable as nutty) as his theory.

Just my POV…

BDW

I fail to see how the “real science” attached to the explaination of Iapetus’s features is anything other than speculation.

If you are a real believer of science, then you know that practically all of science is just speculation and best guesses.

Naturally some are more likely than others, and Hoagland’s claim is particular far fetched, but the scientific explainations are pretty far fetched too in my opinion. They make claims that “Iapetus has such-and-such rotation and such-and-such internal heating” when they do not know these things.

At least Hoagland claims that it ‘could’ be this or that instead of saying that it IS something that the person actually does not know.

badastronomy is a pretty good name for this site…

In the Saturnian system, if you omit Titan (which is much much bigger, and in a class by its own), Iapetus and Rhea are roughly comparable, with Rhea a little bit bigger and more massive than Iapetus. But Iapetus orbits 7 times further away from Saturn than Rhea, and its orbital period is almost 18 times longer.

If you assume that *all* of the gas giant major satellites were essentially melted down during the first couple million years of the solar system as a result of the radioactive heating due to the short-lived radioisotopes, Al26 and Fe60 — a fair assumption since a good portion of the asteroids did the same during this period, and those were mostly much smaller bodies — then all of them (at least ones the size of Mimas or bigger) would have relaxed into oblate spheroids consistent with their rotational periods and self-gravity early on.

Now other things being equal, in a given system, the smaller moons would have frozen up faster. But in a given system, the tidal effects that drive a satellite into synchronous rotation with its parent body are significantly greater the closer the moon is to its parent.

So of all the regular moons of the gas giants in our solar system, what is the best single candidate for freezing up sufficiently quickly after the initial million or two million year heating pulse so as to develop a rigid outer shell that could resist gravitational relaxing *faster* than that moon was slowed into synchronous rotation by tidal action? Yep, Iapetus.

Chill Out said:
> Theres no connection between the heat of a body and the effect of a gravitational tidal force upon that object right? So why are they connected in regards to the ridge?

jotetamu said:
> How did they support the idea of using iron-60 and aluminium-26? Is there any evidence that these were suitably abundant in the early solar system?

Haven’t had the chance to read the paper. This is the chain of reasoning I’ve been able to piece together.

—–
Iapetus has a bulge not consistent with current rotation rate, and an equatorial ridge. If Iapetus had spun faster when young, it would have been shaped to fit the bulge. The only reasonable means for Iapetus to have slowed from that speed to the current speed is tidal interactions with Saturn.

Calculations for tidal slowing would not fit the speed differentials in the time frame if Iapetus had been solid. However, a liquid or semi-liquid (mixed state) planet would have higher tidal reactions, and slow more. But Iapetus is not currently liquid or semi-liquid. In order to be in that state, Iapetus would need more heat. But that heat would need to have been present for the slowing, then disappear before the present.

A number of heat source models were evaluated, including decay of long-lived radiogenics, different surface properties (greenhousing, low emissivity, insulating layer), and impact heating. None of those was sufficient to account for the heating except the long-lived isotopes, and they would still be around. But short-lived isotopes could account for the heating, and would be gone.

There appear to be “Calcium-Aluminum-Inclusions” (CAIs), which contain aluminum-26. Meteorites from the inner solar system have been found with aluminum-26 and iron-60. Therefore, these are likely candidates. Calculations using these decay rates set the age of formation to an approx. 2 Million year tolerance band.

Furthermore, a hot Iapetus would shrink as it cooled. The solid crust over liquid interior would freeze the crustal bulge for the faster rotation speed, so it would retain the basic shape, and the shrinking caused by the cooling would require the matter to go somewhere, so it piled up around the equator.

Ergo, squashed shape not fitting current speed and a ridge around the equator. And an approximate age for Iapetus, to boot.

YEC, that response is funny. 4.652 billion years is 4,652,000,000 years. That gives, oh a million years of leeway there. Not exactly month and year, is it? Plus, the number in the article above is 4.564 billion years.

MattFunke said:
> The article is stating that the smallest amount of time a rotation would have taken (at least) is five hours. In any event, the amount of time a rotation took is less than 16 hours.

I agree that is what they are trying to convey. My original wording is an attempt to describe why that wording fails, why it is semantically bungled.

In the context of the original sentence, “at least” implies a minimum. But in fact, 5 hours per revolution is the fastest speed. 16 hours per revolution is slower. It is the juxtaposition of “at least” with the fastest speed that is the issue. I realize 5 is less than 16, but the construction of the sentence is crappy. It should have been stated differently.