Question Time!

[such_heights]

Calling my geologically inclined friends: please excuse a little lazy-webbing and help me resolve a debate with my father. Is there a non-arbritrary way of distinguishing a planet's north from its south, one that doesn't simply rely on convention? And if not, does that make all sci-fi talk of an unhabitated planet's southern hemisphere etc completely nonsensical?

... These are the things that keep me up at night.

Comments

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

I do know that the sun can never, in fact, rise in the west even on other planets, because the definition of east is the place the sun rises and west is where it sets. Supposedly.

(Captcha is "codex 400,000". I feel this means something. I'm just not sure what.)