Saturn’s Strange Hexagon – In Living Color!

[n2doc]

Color-composite Cassini image of Saturn’s northern hexagon (NASA/JPL/SSI/Jason Major)

Cassini sure has been busy these past few days! After returning some mind-blowing images of the swirling 3,000-km-wide cyclone over Saturn’s north pole the spacecraft pulled back to give a wider view of the ringed giant’s upper latitudes, revealing one of its most curious features: the northern hexagon.

The image above is a color-composite made from raw images acquired by Cassini on November 28 from a distance of 379,268 miles (610,373 kilometers) away. Because the color channels were of a much lower resolution than the clear-filter monochrome image, the color is approximate in relation to individual atmospheric details. Still, it gives an idea of the incredible variation in hues around Saturn’s northern hemisphere as well as clearly showing the uncannily geometric structure of the hexagon.

(Can I get another “WOW”?)


Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/98699/saturns-strange-hexagon-in-living-color/

[montanto]

1. That is a very cool photo!!

[LiberalEsto]

2. Saturnian crop circles?

Evidence of visits from alien travelers?

This is fascinating.

[wellspring]

14. An upgrade of Apple's "Spaceship" headquarters campus, no doubt.

The Cupertino headquarters was getting a little cramped......

( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1757637 )

This new facility also doubles as an Apple store for Saturnian space aliens. Uses a lot of eco-friendly solar glass I hear.

Upgrades the Cupertino campus...........

[leveymg]

3. Saturn's surface appears to be one giant circular storm made up of thousands of smaller cyclones

Fascinating, Jim.

[longship]

4. Wow! Is right!

That's a beauty! The bestest hexagonal Saturnian storm I've ever seen.

Cassini is wonderful.

[On the Road]

5. Photoshoppers are Already on the Job

[Festivito]

7. The Borg ship blew up entering the planet pointed end down.

That would be hexagonal.

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. Interesting lab recreation

Video:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2010/2471.html

[snot]

12. ok, but those little spurts have to happen at the right intervals.

[Thor_MN]

13. Are you talking about the additions of green dye?

It looks to me that the hexagon persisted long after the additions of dye stopped. The hexagon appears to be a function of eddy currents outside the hexagon, pushing the "flat" sides in. I don't think it has anything to do with the frequency dye additions.

[snot]

15. It's the spurts that shape the hexagon, regardless of whether they contain dye.

Watch how the spurts push in the sides of the circle. The dye just shows how the currents interact.

Not a big deal, but that's how it looks to me.

[Thor_MN]

16. You are claiming that they are adding liquid at each of the six sides to push them in?

That only some of of them contain dye? I don't see it that way, that would be a pointless experiment...

[snot]

17. No, sorry if I'm unclear. I'm saying all the spurts contain dye,

but once the sides of the circle are pushed in, they remain pushed – it would take a countering spurt from inside the circle to push them back to where they were. So the pushed-in shape remains in place as the whole thing rotates.

If there are no more spurts, I'd expect that eventually, centrifugal force would smooth everything out as the heaviest elements find their way outward, leaving the less-heavy elements more toward the center. But the point is, pushing the sides in to make the hexagon seems to have resulted in the first place because spurts occurred at intervals that happened to result in 6 sides.

If instead, the spurts occurred exactly 5 times per rotation, you should end up with a more pentagonal shape.

[Thor_MN]

18. That would, again, be a pointless exercise.

Publicly announcing that you have discovered a way to fake something in nature by introducing forces unseen and impossible in nature doesn't make a lot of sense. Click the link in the post with the video, they have a version with neutrally buoyant particles suspended in a water glycerol solution. No "spurts", yet they have a hexagon pattern in their tank.

[snot]

20. Sorry; to me, both videos are ambiguous.

Looking closer, in both, the hexagonal shape seems already to be there. In the green one, the spurts only take place when one of the flat sides is near, so it seems to reinforce them.

If I understand, the experimenters contend that the hexagon results from a difference in rotation speed; and they may be right. The video just don't seem to me to show it happening.

Edited to add: Spurts do happen in nature, sometimes more or less periodically – viz. "Old Faithful."

[Thor_MN]

21. "Old Faithful" isn't a "Spurt" large enough to affect the Jet Stream

Because that's really the scale of what you are proposing. People sit and watch Old Faithful from a mere 300 feet away.

While a volcano blowing it's top can send shock waves into the upper atmosphere, there have been no observations of eruptions powerful enough, at any sort of periodicity, anywhere in the solar system, to support a "spurting" mechanism for a stable waveform in the atmosphere of a planet.

As to the latest objection, there are videos with other "sidedness" and even one that changes the number of sides during the video. These scientists are not trying to fool you with fake manipulations. If you don't believe their findings, disprove them.

Snot, I'm sorry if your Earth is flat and you think gravity works because the Earth sucks. To everyone else, there are more videos at the link above with some cool science, that do show what is happening.

[snot]

22. No need to insult me.

I've never suggested the scientists were trying to deceive anyone, nor have I meant to dispute their theory, or that science is cool.

And I've already looked at all the videos on that page, and just looked again, to see if I could see something that showed more clearly why the hexagons form.

All I'm saying is, for me, the videos are at best illustrative; they do not in themselves show why the hexagon is happening.

[Thor_MN]

23. Sorry, but anti-science faith in unseen events should be pointed out more often.

I'm sorry, but you have been precisely disputing the theories, claiming that it could not be caused by currents alone.

We have seen the effect in dinner plate size and bigass planet size. One video shows dye addition "spurting" and instantly Saturn must have a precisely regular geyser of such monstrous proportions that it defies imagination to push in the flat sides. The obviously visible eddy currents couldn't possibly do it, it MUST be spurting. A video showing the hexagon pattern by suspended particles instead of dye MUST have been faked by spurts before the video started recording. A video showing the number of sides in the pattern changing, with no dye additions, is best left unmentioned.

Of course the videos are at best illustrative, they are essentially 2D representations on a flat surface of what is happening in 3D, wrapped around a spherical planet. If one can't accept that eddy currents cause the effect, that there must be some unseen (except in one video) external spurting force in play, one is on par with the church claiming that the heavens revolve around the earth.

I'm no expert in fluid dynamics, but I have experienced fast flowing water in rivers, paddled into an eddy, and watched the main current flow by just feet away. I have no trouble accepting these studies at face value. I've also paid as much attention to this as I care to, feel free to have the last word, saying again that it doesn't make sense to you, that there must be something else going on that they are not showing you.

[byronius]

8. #&*&^$%^$%^#$^ WOW!!

That's a startling shot.

[Odin2005]

9. I wonder if this thing is similar to the Rossby Waves on Earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave

[Permanut]

10. You've done it again, n2doc..

great post, great picture. I'll see your "wow" and raise you a couple of "fantastics" and an "incredible".

[XtopherXtopher]

11. it sure is a thing of beauty

an incredible image that makes me feel awe and wonder at our universe. what could be better on a sunday morning?

[dipsydoodle]

19. WOW !

[Marrah_G]

24. wow!!!!!!!