Posted on 03/27/2007 11:10:24 AM PDT by anymouse
One of the most bizarre weather patterns known has been photographed at Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature circling the north pole.
Rather than the normally sinuous cloud structures seen on all planets that have atmospheres, this thing is a hexagon.
The honeycomb-like feature has been seen before. NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged it more than two decades ago. Now, having spotted it with the Cassini spacecraft, scientists conclude it is a long-lasting oddity.
"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere, where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate, is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."
The hexagon is nearly 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it. The thermal imagery shows the hexagon extends about 60 miles (100 kilometers) down into the clouds.
At Saturn's south pole, Cassini recently spotted a freaky human eye-like feature that resembles a hurricane.
"It's amazing to see such striking differences on opposite ends of Saturn's poles," said Bob Brown, team leader of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer at the University of Arizona. "At the south pole we have what appears to be a hurricane with a giant eye, and at the north pole of Saturn we have this geometric feature, which is completely different."
The hexagon appears to have remained fixed with Saturn's rotation rate and axis since first glimpsed by Voyager 26 years ago. The actual rotation rate of Saturn is still uncertain, which means nobody knows exactly how long the planet's day is.
"Once we understand its dynamical nature, this long-lived, deep-seated polar hexagon may give us a clue to the true rotation rate of the deep atmosphere and perhaps the interior," Baines said.
What's a fractal? Hope it's not like a henway!
HA! - I was thinking Rama....
I had one of those on my butt once - what a relief when it popped!
I'm sure glad I don't have to give up snake handling for Lent. My snake Sparky would get lonesome.
the DEVIL lives there!!!!!!
I see Mother Teresa's face.
It's obvious that this woman is over sixty.
Isn't the chaos of fluid turbulence modeled well by fractals?
From the article. Yes this looks like a hexagon, but to say it's precise is gross misuse of the word and leads me to believe Kevin is mathematically challenged. It's like saying earth is in a precise circular orbit around the sun.
I thought it was a pentagon, and only the most powerful storms like Katrina have them.
Well it's not unknown, e.g., honeycomb, benzene, thermal cells in a thin film - the last one being particularly apropos.
"Yeah, but in Base-11, it becomes a giant Pi symbol."
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......Base-11 pie!
Nope. Ain't gonna say it.
LOL
Quit it! The boss just brought in the girl scout cookies.
I can resist anything.... except temptation.
Also, if you put 7 soap bubbles on a surface, 6 surrounding a 7th, they form a near perfect hexagon. It's a VERY natural shape.
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