Starship Asterisk*

Saturn's Northern Hexagon

Explanation: Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System. Acquiring its first sunlit views of far northern Saturn in late 2012, the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera recorded this stunning, false-color image of the ringed planet's north pole. The composite of near-infrared image data results in red hues for low clouds and green for high ones, giving the Saturnian cloudscape a vivid appearance. This and similar images show the stability of the hexagon even 20+ years after Voyager. Movies of Saturn's North Pole show the cloud structure maintaining its hexagonal structure while rotating. Unlike individual clouds appearing like a hexagon on Earth, the Saturn cloud pattern appears to have six well defined sides of nearly equal length. Four Earths could fit inside the hexagon. Beyond the cloud tops at the upper right, arcs of the planet's eye-catching rings are tinted bright blue.

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APOD Robot wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 4:10 am Saturn's Northern Hexagon

What a huge beauty...

...compared to our small earth ,-) bigg: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/529 ... b7b9_o.jpg
bigg:https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/529 ... aa76_k.jpg
bigg:https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/529 ... f905_o.jpg
fotocollage jac berne (flickr)

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

"nowhere else in the galaxy"
except here
viewtopic.php?p=289252#p289252

Aren't these just Rossby waves?

giant snowflake!! hexagon
Every snowflake is a hexagon, meaning it has six sides. This is because water molecules each contain two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. (This is why water is called H2O). The most efficient way for the molecules to attach together is in a hexagon shape.

This phenomenon can be created in your kitchen. While preparing sugar water for my honey bees, I observed this nearly every time. Using two parts water, and one part sugar, do this. Bring the water to a rapid boil. Turn off the heat source and dump in the granulated sugar. Stir rapidly, but only for a few seconds. Watch the collection of sugar granules swirling in the middle of the pan, and form faceted sides, sometimes starting with sides greater than six.

wolfie138 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 8:16 am "nowhere else in the galaxy"
except here
viewtopic.php?p=289252#p289252

NASA has also found a hexagon on Jupiter.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia2355 ... ns-hexagon

De58te wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 11:11 am

wolfie138 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 8:16 am "nowhere else in the galaxy"
except here
viewtopic.php?p=289252#p289252

NASA has also found a hexagon on Jupiter.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia2355 ... ns-hexagon

but no hexagon around the Noth pole, just a lightening on Dec. 30, 2020

Could the storm inside have anything to do with the hexagon?

RobS wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 8:20 am Aren't these just Rossby waves?

Could be some kind of an enigma.

FrankTKO wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 2:49 pm Could the storm inside have anything to do with the hexagon?

Saturn's Strange Hexagon Recreated in the Lab...
https://www.science.org/content/article ... reated-lab
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_c9A9Auf0A&t=32s

It seems to me this is not a hexagon, but a sine wave of six cycles occurring in a circle, with an amplitude that doubles the curve of the troughs and flattens out the crests in bending it around the axis.

AVAO wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 3:42 pm

FrankTKO wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 2:49 pm Could the storm inside have anything to do with the hexagon?

Saturn's Strange Hexagon Recreated in the Lab...
https://www.science.org/content/article ... reated-lab
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_c9A9Auf0A&t=32s

Very interesting as usual, AVAO. Thank you!

Ann

an unusual feature of Saturn! Kitty stumped at this hexagon!

VictorBorun wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 2:29 pm

De58te wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 11:11 am

wolfie138 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 8:16 am "nowhere else in the galaxy"
except here
viewtopic.php?p=289252#p289252

NASA has also found a hexagon on Jupiter.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia2355 ... ns-hexagon

but no hexagon around the Noth pole, just a lightening on Dec. 30, 2020

on the second look it's a squre, with rounded corners ...