Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn

[C1ay]

An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with NASA's Cassini mission.

 

lefthttp://hypography.com/gallery/files/9/9/8/saturn_hexagon_thumb.jpg[/img]NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged the feature over two decades ago. The fact that it has appeared in Cassini images indicates that it is a long-lived feature. A second hexagon, significantly darker than the brighter historical feature, is also visible in the Cassini pictures. The spacecraft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is the first instrument to capture the entire hexagon feature in one image.

 

"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 similar to Earth's polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 25,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it.

 

The new images taken in thermal-infrared light show the hexagon extends much deeper down into the atmosphere than previously expected, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) below the cloud tops. A system of clouds lies within the hexagon. The clouds appear to be whipping around the hexagon like cars on a racetrack.

 

"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, University of Arizona, Tucson. "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 Saturn north pole hexagon has not been visible to Cassini's visual cameras, because it's winter in that area, so the hexagon is under the cover of the long polar night, which lasts about 15 years. The infrared mapping spectrometer can image Saturn in both daytime and nighttime conditions and see deep inside. It imaged the feature with thermal wavelengths near 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the human eye) during a 12-day period beginning on Oct. 30, 2006. As winter wanes over the next two years, the feature may become visible to the visual cameras.

 

Based on the new images and more information on the depth of the feature, scientists think it is not linked to Saturn's radio emissions or to auroral activity, as once contemplated, even though Saturn's northern aurora lies nearly overhead.

 

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.

 

"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," added Baines.

 

The hexagon images and movie, including the north polar auroras are available at: NASA - Cassini-Huygens: Close Encounter with Saturn and Cassini-Huygens Home and VIMS Home Page .

 

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona.

 

Source: JPL

[coldcreation]

Wow. The movie is cool. I wonder if this geometric configuration has anything to do with Lagrange points, which also form a hexagon shape with respect to satellites.

 

CC

[Tormod]

I wonder if this geometric configuration has anything to do with Lagrange points, which also form a hexagon shape with respect to satellites.

 

Wow...I had no idea about that aspect of L points! *adds to knowledge repository* B)

[Pyrotex]

C'mon guys! Isn't it obvious?? The hexagons are the "nuts" that hold the rings securely bolted to the planet Saturn.

...obviously by the lowest bidder

Pyro

[Turtle]

C'mon guys! Isn't it obvious?? The hexagons are the "nuts" that hold the rings securely bolted to the planet Saturn.

...obviously by the lowest bidder

Pyro

 

Is that original Pyro? If it is, then spaceweather.com is using it. :) :hyper:

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

: Spaceweather reader Richard Haydon may have a solution to the mystery of the hexagon: "It's a nut!" he says. "The two hemispheres of Saturn are obviously held together by a nut and bolt. I bet the other end is circular." Indeed it is. Saturn's south pole is surrounded by a hurricane-shaped storm with a giant circular eye. Surprisingly, the hardware theory seems to hold water.

 

The link they give associated with the word 'water' in the quote is very interesting as a possible explanation of Saturn's hexagon. Just when I was going to try & invoke electro-magnetic effects! :doh:

Here's that link in any regard: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/060515-17.html

:cup: :)

[freeztar]

Is that original Pyro? If it is, then spaceweather.com is using it. :doh: :)

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

 

 

The link they give associated with the word 'water' in the quote is very interesting as a possible explanation of Saturn's hexagon. Just when I was going to try & invoke electro-magnetic effects! :doh:

Here's that link in any regard: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060515/full/060515-17.html

:cup: :)

 

Awesome link Turtle!

Here's what is strange and serendipitous:

I followed your link above and a light bulb came on. It makes sense in an abstract way. I can't describe why or how, but it just seems to make sense. So I came back to your earlier post, in the thread I started, and followed your link there back to the Fuller thread for a re-read. You posted this link and I was going through it when I noticed something strange (or not so strange really). Look at the overhead views at the bottom of the page, the tetrahedrons with a "7" beside it. Looks a lot like the pictures from the article you posted above with the cylinders and plates!!! :cup: :hyper:

[Turtle]

Awesome link Turtle!

Here's what is strange and serendipitous:

I followed your link above and a light bulb came on. It makes sense in an abstract way. I can't describe why or how, but it just seems to make sense. So I came back to your earlier post, in the thread I started, and followed your link there back to the Fuller thread for a re-read. You posted this link and I was going through it when I noticed something strange (or not so strange really). Look at the overhead views at the bottom of the page, the tetrahedrons with a "7" beside it. Looks a lot like the pictures from the article you posted above with the cylinders and plates!!! :doh: :hyper:

 

Roger! :) For clarification, here is the exact link to the drawing Freezy is referencing:

Fig. 990.01

 

If I had to sum up Synergetics succinctly, it is Fuller's view that Nature divides space into tetrahedrons, not cubes, and that we distort our view of Nature by doing our math/geometry using the cubic lattice cooordinates instead of tetrahedral coordinates. The surprise at seeing a hexagon expressed in this article and others is, I believe, supportive of my summation of Fuller's Synergetics. :)

[Turtle]

Something else geometrically interesting in this crossed my mind, and that is that the hexagon is at the North pole of Saturn, but they say the South pole view looks like a big eye. Both these forms also occur centered on the vesica piscis. Clearly there is no straight analog as the vesica piscis is a plane figure and the Saturn formations are moving in 3-d, but interesting still.

 

I seem to have deleted the drawing of the derivation of the vesica piscis in a fit, so I'll see about restoring that post-haste.

[Turtle]

I now believe the feature is due to charged particles orbiting a Möbius strip shaped by Saturn's magnetic field.

 

See >> http://hypography.com/forums/engineering-applied-science/11690-moebius-strips-2.html#post175644

 

This is consistent with:

...The hexagon is nearly 25,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it.

 

The new images taken in thermal-infrared light show the hexagon extends much deeper down into the atmosphere than previously expected, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) below the cloud tops....

 

Because the width of the Möbius band must be at a length to width ratio of 3*[math]{sqrt 3}[/math] for the hexagon to form, & we know the thickness & diameter of the band, we ought to be able to deduce something about the 'springy' forces.

 

I will append some measurements to the Möbius strip thread on the effects of flattening the 3*[math]{sqrt 3}[/math] strip. :cup: