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
space bees
Design for Use, not Construction!
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.
Perhaps the universe is just poorly anti-aliased
The original generic sig.
When God created Saturn, he used a low polygon count to speed up the rendering process.
Last time I checked, all hexagons had six sides...
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.
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?
... it's a nut holding the rings in place. You can even see the bolt.
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
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.