Slashdot Mirror
Saturn's Moon Iapetus Has A 'Belt'
Believe writes "In another unexpected find by Cassini-Huygens, Saturn's moon Iapetus shows a bulging waistline. According to the story, the dark side of the moon is almost perfectly bisected by a tall, narrow ridge that runs for 1300 km (808 mi) and rises up to 20 km (12 mi) high. This height is amazing in such a small moon; it rivals Olympus Mons on Mars which is a body 5 times its size."
There is a short-story by Clarke about a universe that contains only one sun and one planet, the universe is about as big as the planets orbit. The planet is constantly showing the same face toward the sun, it has a day-side, very hot, and anight side, very cold. Humans live around the equator where the temperature is right.
In the book the universe actually ends somewhere around the north pole(dark side) of the planet and a long time ago humans built a great wall to hide the end of the universe... great short-story.