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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 03/27/2007 : 21:44:27
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http://space.com/scienceastronomy/070327_saturn_hex.html
Interesting.
I lack enough knowledge to even venture a guess for what could cause this. But it is definitely interesting.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2007 : 21:55:59 [Permalink]
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How about this: Nature abhors a straight line, but goes gaga over hexagons?
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Michael Mozina
SFN Regular
1647 Posts |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/28/2007 : 03:19:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
How about this: Nature abhors a straight line, but goes gaga over hexagons?
You got that right!
quote:
Hexagons are everywhere!. Everywhere you can find a bunch of homogeneous objects that is. Whether we look into beehives, man-made devices, living tissues or even atoms we can find surprising examples of a characteristic hexagonal pattern. We call it hexagonal close packing and it is in fact most effective to pack the largest number of objects in a minimum space. Let us see some examples.
So just the formation being hexagonal isn't all that noteworthy. Why it's hexagonal is the real question.
I, like Dude, haven't the faintest idea....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2007 : 05:16:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
How about this: Nature abhors a straight line, but goes gaga over hexagons?
You got that right!
quote:
Hexagons are everywhere!. Everywhere you can find a bunch of homogeneous objects that is. Whether we look into beehives, man-made devices, living tissues or even atoms we can find surprising examples of a characteristic hexagonal pattern. We call it hexagonal close packing and it is in fact most effective to pack the largest number of objects in a minimum space. Let us see some examples.
So just the formation being hexagonal isn't all that noteworthy. Why it's hexagonal is the real question.
I, like Dude, haven't the faintest idea....
Neither do I. It's not as though that polar hexagon is visibly being crowded by other hexagons, so the hexagonal packing thing probably doesn't apply in this case.
That ignorance won't prevent me from making an unqualified wild guess, though.
My guess is that there are some sort of weather patterns, huge cyclonic storms or whatever, at circumpolar latitudes, but that these don't create enough contrast to be visible.
If this is correct, here would be six such storms, evenly spaced, east-west around Saturn at the same latitude, with this whole system being duplicated around the opposite pole. For some topographical reason, six of these circumpolar cyclones are more stable than any other number. Each unseen cyclone would be the approximate size of the polar hexagon. Pressing against the polar feature (an upwelling, like in arctic seas?), these form straight-lined borders, somewhat like what one gets when bubbles are connected. Maybe?
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/28/2007 05:21:44 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2007 : 09:33:55 [Permalink]
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| Pfft, this is nothing. Not nearly as amazing as the concentic circles which dominate the planet. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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TG
Skeptic Friend
USA
121 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2007 : 11:01:42 [Permalink]
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| My guess, unencumbered by any actual facts ("Facts .. pfft, you can prove anything with facts" - H. Simpson), is that it's a standing wave. However, I slept through fluid dynamics, so I may have missed something. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2007 : 20:16:25 [Permalink]
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Maybe some effect of Saturn's magnetic field?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2007 : 22:11:01 [Permalink]
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| god did it |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Saturn "hexagon"
