Slashdot Mirror
Cassini Probes the Hexagon On Saturn
Riding with Robots sends us to a NASA page with photos of a little-understood hexagonal shape surrounding Saturn's north pole. "This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet." This structure was discovered by the Voyager probes over 20 years ago (here's an 18-year-old note on the mystery). The fact that it's still in place means it is stable and long-lived. Scientists have no idea what causes the hexagon. It's nearly big enough to fit four earths inside — comfortably larger than Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The article has an animation of clouds moving within the hexagon captured in infrared light.
The Saturn North Pole? Isn't that where Saturn Clause lives? Maybe he has something to do with it.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Wasn't there a story here within the last six months or so about spinning a bucket of water at the right speed and having it form geometric forms, including a hexagon?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Some attitudes replaced or by cgi optimizes
space bees
Design for Use, not Construction!
Well, is it? Were the camera lenses made in the same way?
Stick Men
With Fife Symington coming forward and saying that the Phoenix Lights from 1997 were actually an "other worldly craft" - how much longer can we believe ourselves to be alone in the universe?
It's obvious to me, as a trained ufologist, that this is not a natural phenomenon. This hexagonal structure was BUILT by intelligent life.
hexagonal shape surrounding Saturn's north pole
...
damn. you win again, polar coordinates
WIth something like this to get excited about, who needs the "Face on Mars"?
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
'Nuff said.
it's kind of like the alien's version of the pentagon. except with more sides. which means more brainpower can fit into the building. you should start to worry when geometric shapes begin to show up on uranus.
http://wstewart.php0h.com - the sugarbuzz project blog
*dons tinfoil hat*
Aha! So that's where it was!
But wasn't it supposed to be rectangular? Oh well, this will do. Just wait till it starts sucking the atmosphere in.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1 bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, pass it round... Oh, umm...
It's obvious to me, as a trained oafologist, that this is not a natural phenomenon
There, fixed that for ya
Perhaps the universe is just poorly anti-aliased
The original generic sig.
It's the monoliths playing games with us.
I, for one, welcome our hexagonal overlords...
... ?
no seriously...
spin a bucket of water.
take some acid.
write a thesis.
PROFIT!
A geometric shape in space... and it's not a sphere!?? THIS IS NEWS!
I'm thinking Niven's planetary Ramjet.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
They may have gotten to our Pentagon, but I damn well double dare them to try and strike at our hexagon!
Life needs more saving throws.
These are just tool marks left by the builders on Magrathea. Nothing to see here; please move along...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
When God created Saturn, he used a low polygon count to speed up the rendering process.
I for one welcome our Giant Spinning Hexagon Overlords.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Last time I checked, all hexagons had six sides...
And I would ask you not to reveal the future location of the DoD, thank you! :D
Same resonant pattern in the bucket at http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/060515 -17.html
It is a giant ice crystal.
Largest snowflake ev'ah....
I agree, the only logical conclusion is that Saturn has been colonized by giant space bees who have made it their honey comb hive.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Superman had to abandon his Earth-based Fortress of Solitude, which was starting to melt due to global warming, not to mention all the annoying scientific expeditions coming by to drill for ice cores. He figured he'd try Saturn's north pole for a change. The commute's a bit longer, but there's less traffic.
...that's a space station!
makes it look like a portal to Hell.
faaak... Richard C. Hoagland had this story in 2004.
:-|
I cannot wait for Richard C. Hoagland to write another diatribe about Hyperdimensional Hurricanes.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/hurricane1.htm
That's no hexagon.. that's an AT Field!
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
That's what I'd imagine hell to look like. Perhaps it's a giant industro-military office building?
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
Saturn is the sixth planet out.
A hexagon has six sides.
There is a second hexagon inside the first. Another six sides.
6-6-6
Hmmm, that number kind of has a ring to it. And so does Saturn.
Coincidence?
Hasn't anyone else ever looked at the patterns that appear in the bottom of a running blender when you are making a shake?
This is just a big dharma project logo.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Except for Titan. Attempt no landing there.
I'm the stranger...posting to
... was dead wrong, it wasn't Jupiter, it's Saturn. :p
... it's a nut holding the rings in place. You can even see the bolt.
But maybe someone can. I'm fuzzy on the details, but I'm sure I recall a story in the last year or so of someone (I think it was in Holland or Belgium?) spinning or stirring water at high speed in a vaccuum or some other odd pressure environment, and getting a wierd, six-way figure in the vortex when viewed from above?
Sorry, no time to search out the details, but maybe the mechanics of that might lend themselves to analyzing this?
-Styopa
The first Mimzy?
Heh, been seeing that trailer a lot lately and this picture reminded me of that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia_(novel)/
... planted on Saturn (and elsewhere through our solar system) by extraterrestrials and containing puzzles that will show us where to contact them after decoding?
Hexagonal objects
Eerie.
Do you have *any* idea how hard it is to find a parking space for that thing where some yob's not going to key it or deflate the tires or poke at it with a spectrograph? :(
I should have got the next model down, then I could have pretended it was just another moon, but nooooooo, I had to get the hexagonal UltraSUV because it was "different" and had more legroom.
Hm, wonder if that guy who owns Mimas would do a swap. His camo paint job looks *so* much less convincing after those stupid films.
See this is what happens when you let robin williams loose with spore - and he starts putting monoliths on planets... "The player may place a "monolith" (à la 2001: A Space Odyssey) on a planet, triggering evolution of intelligent life, then come back later to see what has evolved." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(video_game)
That's the Illuminati All Seeing Eye!
Guess the machines never thought we'd get that far away from the city. At least it's not a skybox.
Well, everybody knows that: honeycomb big, yeah, yeah, yeah. If only these scientists had just taken the time to watch Saturday morning cartoons, or Futurama.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Yes, that'll be Saturn Claus, devouring a few stray elves now that the kids are gone. It's most likely a big hexagonal bloodstain...
In other news, a monolith was unearthed in the Tycho crater on the moon yesterday and began emitting signals off into space...
The scientific explanation for this will undoubtedly be:
"It must be the magnetic field."
I, on the other hand, think it's just a huge snowflake.
"almost looks like a human eye."
Looks more like Saturn is giving us a Goatse, spreading wide for the camera.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
It is a secret US military presence, designed to be the successor to the Pentagon in the event of a global catastrophe.
OOps, I was not supposed to say that. Are those black suburbans pulling up in my driveway?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It's the hexies from Saturnalia.
On the "flipside", they do call it a "One-Eyed Monster"...
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
Both words, Jupiter and Jewish start from 'J' and hexagon can be used to depict the star of David. The mystery is solved and Jupiter should really be renamed into Jewpiter. Oh, and it's closed on Saturdays. The official anthem is 7:40
You can't handle the truth.
Where is Johnnie Rico when you need him?
Or, its warning sign placed there by the Vogon Constructor Fleet
Unless Grant Callin was more prophetic than he would believe and the Hexies of Tharthee (from his novels Saturn Alia and A Lion on Tharthee) really exist... in which case there's a plaque down there with information inscribed on it.
Honey Comb's big!(4 earths) Yeah, yeah, yeah! It's not small...no, no, no!
The comment threads on this one definitely break some sort of record on number of puns per line. Nice to see such deep, significant scientific discussion! :)
shana
you have NO EVIDENCE
SCIENCE says this thing EVOLVED from a simple LINE
WHY DO YOU HATE EUCLID
The hexagramm, the 6-pointed star has always been the occult mystery
school symbol for Saturn for thousands of years. Contrary to popular
believe, the hexagram is not just a jewish symbol but goes back thousands
of years to the mystery schools of old.
by the speed at which the object it rotating, check the RPM against the RPM of the water bucket device, match the shape, and you'll have the same speeds.
works with most liquid and gases.
Maybe it is an organism?
Storms come out of Pentagon.
I don't think I've ever seen a story with such a high fraction of joke comments!
Maybe we see a "superstructure" of a sphere-packing solution.
(that like came totally out of my ass)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
A Honeycomb Hideout, if you will.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Those crazy Saturnians are trying to initiate the Third Impact!
Time to fire up Google Saturn! Hey, look a Starbucks!
...and when it comes off, watch out!
Table-ized A.I.
Well, look what a little Googleing brought up:
To the right, Earth's south polar ozone hole (with a roughly pentagon shape)."We have no idea what it is, and we certainly didn't 4 years ago. I swear."
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
From TFA (picture cap): "This nighttime view of Saturn's north pole shows a bizarre six-sided hexagon feature encircling the entire north pole."
Call me when they've found a five sided hexagon!
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/060515 -17.html
That's where you insert the Allen wrench to wind up the solar system!
Geez folks. Do you have to be told everything?
Cyrano de Maniac
One wonders if this is similar to what is occasionally seen in hurricanes: polygonal eyes. (If interested, do a Google search on "polygonal eyewalls" and get a pretty nice synopsis of the literature on the topic.) It isn't terribly out of the range of possibility that simple theories like these may be enough to explain a lot of this phenomenon. And, yes, polygonal eyewalls in real hurricanes can be very persistent, if the vortex itself doesn't change much and proper balances are maintained. On a planet like Saturn, I would imagine that things don't change too much even from year to year, so the whole pattern could persist for decades if unperturbed.
--Jellisky
Uh-oh. Nathan Brazil is probably in the neighborhood.
_ of_Souls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_at_the_Well
Back around 9/11, my sister found a news article talking about how an airplane had hit "The Pentagon, a hexagonal-shaped building..."
...at enterprisemission.com. That con artist "Doctor" Richard Hoagland has been scamming gullible people for decades. He's claimed at some time or another that he's behind most of the theories on planetary development that have become paradigms in astronomy now. On the other hand, he also claims the "face" on Mars and other naturally occurring phenomena are alien artifacts (see a nice parody of him at http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/lenin.html where Phil Plait sees Lenin in a pattern on his shower curtain). I'd hate to think what Hoagland's gonna make of this hexagonal shape at Saturn's pole... probably rant on about how it confirms his "hyperdimensional physics" baloney. It's great to see that a bunch of slashdotters have already posted common explanations for the phenomena (which TFA unfortunately left out).
It is a remanent of a Marovian prototype. Look for more to be found with different ecologies nearby. Besides, nature as well as D&Ders prefer hex formations. Well at least in wilderness areas. And Fullerenes.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I see geometry has become less rigid since I graduated.
it's just really really bad texture mapping. The polygons are showing!
If you spin liquids in a cylinder, you can produce very regular geometric shapes:
s ubalbum_1.html
i mg/3/RotatingPolygon.avi
http://www.metafilter.com/51516/spooky-fluids
http://dcwww.fysik.dtu.dk/~tbohr/RotatingPolygon/
http://dcwww.fysik.dtu.dk/~tbohr/RotatingPolygon/
Either that, or it's part of a giant alien communication dish.
DOOM... Doom... doom...
I loaded the image into Gimp, centered it, and did a reverse polar-rectangular conversion. When I superimposed a sine wave, it was a fairly good match.
It may only appear straight because it's the distance from the center of a curved surface, so that the curve of the wave, and the curve of the surface cancel out.
#6 Was that said by a politician? Wasn't it also correct in that that carrier group had completed its mission? Why do people knock the military for celebrating its accomplishments?
Also, why do you compare a list of (mostly) lies with one Senator's opinion? It's not the same thing.
Strive for more clarity in your off-topic posts, will ya?
At least they are not "north pole" probing Uranus
So isn't this phenomenon the orbital equivalent of an wave interference pattern? You have a whole bunch of particles in cirulation with slight differences in the size, shape, and eccentricity of their paths, and the result is a polygon-shaped interference pattern. Just like the polygons created by the purely circular motions of a Spirograph.
Hmmm. Let's put on our powerful comic book writer thinking caps and apply all the fearesome, brute thought power that goes into writing a comic book.
Hmmm... >:-(
I've got it!
It's a giant bolt that holds the planet from splitting in two and letting an ancient demon out!
No, Superman! Get away! I know Lex Luthor told you the only place to get the antidote for Lois was inside there. Don't do it!
Ding - Fries are done!
Ding - Fries are done!
Ding - Fries are done!
Hulk could beat Superman! Oh yeah? Well Superman turned this giant bolt! Oh yeah? Well, Hulk punched and destroyed an asteriod twice the size of Earth! Oh yeah? Well, this bolt head alone is four times the size of Earth! And the whole bolt is hundreds of times its size! Oh yeah? I would indeed like an apple pie with that. Here you go, sir.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Fritjov Capra ( this guy's an absolute legend, by the way ) had an interesting section on hexagonal structures like these in his book, Web of Life. He was talking about Dissipative Structures, discovered by Ilya Prigogine.
... ie you could run a pen through them and disturb them, and they'd immediately revert to these perfect hexagons. It was fascinating reading - thoroughly recommended for people interested in biology, physics, and philosophy.
In the experiment that was being described, a small dish of water was heated up uniformly from below. At a certain point, these hexagonal structures emerged. Hot water would rise from the bottom of the dish, travelling in a pipe directly through the middle of the hexagon ( forming a point in the middle that you could see ). When the water hit the surface, it spread out cooled, and then travelled back down to the bottom, creating the sides of the hexagon. Apparently they were getting multiple hexagons, and they were incredibly stable
665 is the guy across the street from the beast.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Now a hexagon WITHOUT six sides would REALLY be bizarre.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Six sided, DAMN!!! I wanted 7 of 9.
AT field detected on Saturn's surface ! Code Orange ! Launch all EVA units, and someone go fetch me the Longinus Spear !
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
On Saturn, pi is 3.
No way, it's a pylon that the Sleestack use to teleport.
I was under the impression that this is part of the wargame project that put SPI out of business.
(SPI?!? see http://www.costik.com/spisins.html )
simple harmonics. Planetary atmospheres, even as dynamic as this, still have whole cloth properties like a single solid material in some respects and one of those is that it will support density waves of varying frequencies over varying distances. That the planet is round doesn't mean there would be some infinite number of angles. It can easily have a very few and they are reinforced by the conditions that started them.
That south pole one has a somewhat rounded hexagon near the center if you look carefully.
Nothing unusual to see here. Simple physics. Come to think of it, if the universe were a hypersphere and the big bang were to set the whole vibrating, then what would multidimension spherical harmonics cause the distribution of mass in the universe to look like? Perhaps like loops and voids all helter skelter about in a way the from our POV seems without rhyme or reason?
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Where's the planetary sized wrench shaped object?
Those aren't memes, those are snowclones!
Aside from the fact that *Saturn* is the Jewish planet. That "hexagon" is, of course, its kipah.
But you outed us, you anti-Semitic clod!
God: I move to Saturn.
GM: You are attacked by a goblin that was hidden beneath the rings!
yes, but not all 6-sided polygons posses features that are at once "precise" and "nearly equal".
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Clearly it's an Allen key socket. God must have bought Saturn from Ikea.
I'm betting it's a giant building for Saturn's military, just like the Pentagon in DC. But Saturn isn't quite a satanic as D.C., but they have a 6-sided figure instead of a 5-sided one. Maybe they're Jewish?
Anyone see a similarity between to this observed effect? http://www.physorg.com/news66924222.html
If liquids are able to hold a coherent shape for lengthy periods (as the shape on Saturn would seem to indicate), then if the mechanism for creating them could be understood better, could they not be used for inefficient but decorative data storage?
Top view of fork being rotated clockwise:
^ resulting force
^
|_| |_| <--driving force
v
v
From the article :
...as oppose to the normal ones with only five sides?
> This nighttime view of Saturn's north pole shows a bizarre six-sided hexagon...
hrm. ok.
Max.
as seen here: http://www.etl.noaa.gov/about/eo/science/convectio n/RBCells.html
Not sure how the rotation affects/interacts with those.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I'd turn it on, but I'm Quicksorting the people I'll be seeing on Judgment Day, and Catalyst Control Center is taking up half of Orion too.
(My son will come over to install one of those 8800's, but the shipping takes millennia.)
--God
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
I said the socket set, boy!!!
Hexagon? It must be clouds of benzene!
It's not small?
That's the biggest nut I have seen so far. There must be a wrench somewhere
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
If our solar system contains so many mysteries, imagine what the rest of the universe holds.
Imagine the scientific excitement if you were aboard a vessel like the Galaxy Class USS Enterprise from Star Trek (NCC 1701 D), approaching Saturn and seeing live the phenomenon, then staying there for a while to study it and comprehend it!
Exploration of space is the most important goal for humankind. Earth provides a very limited experience, and in a few 100 years it will be totally explored. If we want to understand the universe, space is the final frontier.
Does anyone remember the sci-fi story based on the idea that one of the gas giant planet's moons (Titan?) consisted of an enormous diamond? It might have been one of Sagan's stories. Space is really big, somewhere out there I'll bet there are crystals the size of small planets. I don't remember if diamond crystals can present a hexagonal cross section, but with the pressure of saturn's atmosphere, you might get crystals of a hydrocarbon. Who would have thought that black carbon subjected to enormous pressure would become a beautiful transparent crystal diamond?
I thought it became 666 after sales tax.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
FTA: The hexagon is similar to Earth's polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 25,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it.
Well, the radius of the earth is approx. 6366 km, so the diameter is 12732km, so nearly TWO earths could fit inside it.
See if hexagon remains after April Fool's Day?
there.
man, I feel like mold.
Science News week of June 3, 2006; Vol. 169, No. 22 , p. 348 As waters part, polygons appear Peter Weiss Imagine a hurricane with an eye in the shape of a propeller amid the swirling clouds. Physicists have observed something almost as strange in whirlpools that they made by swirling liquids in a novel way. Within the whirlpools, they've seen three-blade-propeller shapes as well as regular polygons, including squares and hexagons. a7340_1457.jpg CURRENT EVENT. A whirlpool, viewed from above, takes a pentagonal shape just above the spinning platter that's causing the water to swirl. T. Jansson, et al./Physical Review Letters The behavior of liquids in rotating containers has long fascinated physicists. For instance, in a famous late-1600s study, Isaac Newton pondered why the surface of water in a rotating bucket becomes concave. In the new experiments, Tomas Bohr and his colleagues at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby observed liquids in a cylindrical, Plexiglas container that doesn't actually turn. Instead, a plate attached to a motor-driven shaft spins at up to 7 revolutions per second inside the container, while the vessel itself remains still. As expected, in experiments with water or with viscous ethylene glycol, the spinning platter swirled the liquid above it to create whirlpools. But the throats of those whirlpools tapered to surprising shapes at the platter's surface, the team reports in the May 5 Physical Review Letters. In the water experiments, those shapes transformed as speed increased, changing from circular to elliptical to propeller-shaped to square to pentagonal and finally to hexagonal. Ethylene glycol whirlpools formed shapes with no more than three sides. Curiously, the polygons themselves rotated, although more slowly than their parent whirlpools. Rotating fluids play important roles in systems ranging from industrial equipment, such as pumps, to atmospheric disturbances, such as tornadoes and hurricanes. Although the newfound shapes remain unexplained, Bohr says that their discovery may eventually lead scientists to a deeper understanding of fluids' rotational behaviors.
Based on the fact there is rotation above it, it looks like a giant drain for Saturn! :>D
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/060515 -17.html
I know I'm late with an addition, but.. if you think that's cool - check out this guy:
http://www-math.mit.edu/~bush/
http://www-math.mit.edu/~bush/gallery.html
http://www-math.mit.edu/~bush/polyhedra.jpg