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Saturn's Strange Hexagon Recreated In the Lab
cremeglace writes "Saturn boasts one of the solar system's most geometrical features: a giant hexagon encircling its north pole. Though not as famous as Jupiter's Great Red Spot, Saturn's Hexagon is equally mysterious. Now researchers have recreated this formation in the lab using little more than water and a spinning table—an important first step, experts say, in finally deciphering this cosmic mystery. More details, including a cool demo video, at ScienceNOW."
RTFA- the vortex previously used to explain this effect was gone when Cassini came by- but the hexagon was still there. This is a laboratory experiment, completely reproducible, that explains the effect in a new way.
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That was done with one fluid, and looked at the shape of the "empty" space at the bottom of the bucket - the article also states that the researcher didn't think it would apply to large bodies like planets, but possibly for small bodies like tornadoes. This recent experiment used a base fluid rotating at one speed and a "disk" to rotate a subset fluid at a higher rate, simulating jet streams - seems much more relevant than the previous experiment, IMO.
Similar experiment, opposite conclusions.
2006: Faster speeds, more sides
2010: Faster speeds, fewer sides
$1,000.00 TO ANYONE WHO CAN DISPROVE THE HARMONIC HEXAGON.
( http://www.timecube.com/ for anyone not getting the joke)
Similar oscillations have been observed in Mercury.
Click on Activity 3.
Bubbles will tessalate into hexagons with the right pressure. i guess it's more stable (closer to circles/spheres) than other shapes.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
According TFA they have made triangles and squares too, pretty much any shape you want by varying the speed. The fast the differential the fewer sides.
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i made hexagon shapes in the bird bath in my back yard with the garden hose while spraying water in it in such a way that gets water spinning in a circular direction (to clean out debris and freshen the water)
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Hexagonal crystals are also not unusual, for similar reasons.
What would be weird would be a naturally occurring repeating pattern of different shapes, e.g., a soccerball-like repeating mixture of pentagons and hexagons, or a pattern of octagons that each adjoin another octagon on the north, south, east, and west edges, with squares (angled at 45 degrees) filling the gaps between the ne, sw, se, and nw edges, and bonus points if adjoining octagons are different colors while the ones across squares from eachother are the same color. Show me THAT occurring naturally, and I'll stand there with my jaw hanging open staring at it in wonderment.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Stumped scientists first attributed the shape to a huge, stormlike vortex along one of the hexagon’s sides, which Voyager also spotted during its journey. Astronomers believed this gyre was altering the jet stream’s course, much in the same way a large rock would change a nearby river’s path. But when the Cassini mission returned to Saturn and photographed Saturn's north pole in 2006, the vortex was gone, yet the hexagon was still there.
The PP is correct - it was also recreated in 2006 with only a spinning bottom. What was disproved is that the hexagon was shaped by an *offset* vortex. And it was featured in /. too, IKEA jokes included :) Quoth ye olde article:
Tomas Bohr and colleagues made plexiglass buckets, 13 and 20 centimetres across, with metal bottoms that could be rotated at high speed by a motor. [...] Swinney, meanwhile, thinks that the process is unlikely to apply to large-scale flows such as that on Saturn, but might be relevant to smaller-scale phenomena such as tornadoes.
Then again, experiments must be repeated for validation, additional data and other improvements (including prettier videos!)
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Probably as rare as grammar trolls on slashdot.
You know, I thought that at first too, and maybe you know more than I, but the article I linked says they occur naturally.
Minute quantities of the fullerenes, in the form of C60, C70, C76, and C84 molecules, are produced in nature, hidden in soot and formed by lightning discharges in the atmosphere.[6] Recently, fullerenes were found in a family of minerals known as Shungites in Karelia, Russia.
I looked up a few sources, and they agree. Here is one that looks legit: http://www.springerlink.com/content/w3856554l87733w3/fulltext.pdf?page=1
I thought making symmetrical holes in water is easy http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/news060515-17.html
Fullerenes are ridiculously common in soot. Besides, you don't think "manmade" means going in and arranging atoms one-by-one in arrangements that aren't stable, do you? If the atoms are in a stable arrangement, it's because it minimizes the free energy of the system, and I guarantee that nature has figured out a way to get there first.