Domes or craters on Iapetus?

[okiscopey (Mike)]

Earwig-oh again! Why does Mr. Nasa and that nice Ms. Apod keep showing us upside-down images?

Are they domes or craters, and do astronauts sometimes have problems working out what they're seeing in unfamiliar situations?

Anyway ... stunning pictures whichever way you look at them!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedi...m?imageID=2733

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

They both look like Blistered peeling paint on a wall!

Yes, it is a wierd optical illusion due to the fact that our brain is used to seeing light come from above! So our brain adjusts accordingly.

[Chrissyo (Chris)]

They look like craters to me. The trick appears to be to look at all those smaller craters rather than just concentrate on the larger ones.

I'm assuming the lunar astronauts didn't get confused very often, because a vast majority of what they were looking at would have been craters - so regardless they would have been expecting them (plus, being in a moving spacecraft might invoke a bit of parallax to help them out).

Great images of Iapetus!

[sheeny (Al)]

It must be cold up there... it looks friesian!!! What do you reckon Ving???



Al.

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

I reckon they're craters - based on the angles of the "black out spots" - if you look at the "craters" angle they make sense, but do not when viewed from the domes perspective.

VERY cool effect though! Thanks for posting that.