On a ring origin of the equatorial ridge of Iapetus |
On a ring origin of the equatorial ridge of Iapetus |
Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
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Wing Ip just had an interesting Iapetus-related paper published in GRL.
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 ![]() |
On multiple ridges - perhaps the emplacement of the ridge gradually unbalanced the moon causing small step changes to new, more stable rotation axes.
On the depletion of volatiles presumed to have been caused by the collision event that originally lofted the ring material - depletion is not the same as complete elimination and only a tiny fraction of volatiles is required to form the temporary atmosphere. On the origin of the ring - how do we know it was 'lofted by collision'? Japetus might have formed as a double moon. The smaller body's orbit would probably be quite unstable and one of the end scenarios for it would be early break-up at the roche limit to form a ring. In that case both bodies might be expected to have been a bit warmer before the ring-forming event due to tidal heating, but there would be no massive loss of volatiles when the rings formed. |
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