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

[secondsilk]

I would use that definition: that counterclockwise around the northern pole one.

I lost marks on a science quiz once because I said the earth rotated West to East (which it does! (you just have to ignore place names that have east and west in them)), when the "correct" answer was supposedly counter-clockwise. Even though we were in Australia and closest pole is therefore the southern pole and clockwise rotation! I still hate that teacher.