When a Protruding Waistline Suggests Youthfulness

iapetus

One of the most remarkable features in the outer Solar System is the equatorial ridge of Iapetus. Recent work by Amanda Damptz and colleagues sheds new light on the crater density of the ridge to determine its relative age. They find that the ridge is younger than the surrounding plains, supporting the hypothesis that the ridge was created by the in-fall of material from a tidally disrupted sub-satellite. READ MORE »