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."

Comments

Geometrical

[Anonymous Coward]

A hexagon? The summary is right, that is the most geometrical feature I've ever seen in the solar system. At least twice as geometrical as all those spheroids and ellipses.

Re:Geometrical

[JoshuaZ]

Spheroids, ellipses and circles arise fairly naturally from well-understood laws. Even if the laws were a bit different we'd still see them a fair bit. For example, if gravity was inverse linear planets would still organize into spheres. Orbits wouldn't be ellipses but they aren't really ellipses anyways, just ellipses to a first approximation (gravity from other planets distorts the orbits a measurable amount. This was actually used to predict the existence of Neptune based on the failure for Uranus to in as nice an ellipse). But hexagons are very rare in nature. In that sense they are a nice geometric object that we generally associate either with humans or with evolved self-organizing processes (such as bees which use hexagons because they are an efficient tiling pattern). But hexagons out of simple processes like this is just weird. In that sense this is more akin to geometrical objects like squares and octagons that you just don't see in nature. The point being made by using that term should have been clear.

Re:Geometrical

[AP31R0N]

Bubbles will tessalate into hexagons with the right pressure. i guess it's more stable (closer to circles/spheres) than other shapes.

Re:Yawn

[Marxist Hacker 42]

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.

Duh!

[oldhack]

That's where you stick the socket in. Stupid scientists.

SATURN HAS 6 CORNER

[butalearner]

SIMULTANEOUS 6-DAY

TIME HEXAGON

IN ONLY 10.57 HOUR ROTATION

Re:Similar article from some years ago...

[chaodyn]

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.

Chalker's Well World

[weston]

"A giant hexagon encircling its north pole?"

Well, that sounds familiar:

"The team discovers a surface anomaly near the north pole of the planet, where a hexagonal hole appears for a brief interval every day. "

I for one welcome... er, wonder where our Markovian Overlords went.

Similar Features in Mercury

[Sir Holo]

Similar oscillations have been observed in Mercury.

Click on Activity 3.

Re:Mystery?

[Rockoon]

Why is it on Jupiter?