Avalanches on Saturn’s moon offer cold comfort

Giant avalanches on an icy moon of Saturn may provide clues about landslides on Earth, say scientists.

Images from the American space agency Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft revealed 30 ice falls on Iapetus, a moon girdled by steep 12-mile high mountains.

In 17 instances, the avalanches plunged down crater walls, while another 13 swept down the sides of the equatorial mountain range.

Scientists identified a strange feature of the avalanches. At high speeds, the falling ice began to behave like a liquid.

Experts are still trying to explain a similar phenomenon seen in landslides and earthquakes on Earth.

Kelsi Singer, from Washington University at St Louis, said: “The landslides on Iapetus are a planetary-scale experiment that we cannot do in a laboratory or observe on Earth, so any theory of long runout landslides on Earth must also work for avalanches on Iapetus.”