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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

Now where did I leave that REALLY BIG socket set.

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"Probably the last sound heard before the universe folded up like a paper hat would be someone saying 'What happens if I do this?'"

"Have you ever tried going mad without power? It's boring. Nobody listens to you."

... somewhere, Hoagland is lurking ...

CJSF

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Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

Take a look at this:

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/0605...060515-17.html

If you spin a bucket of water, you get a hexagon. I also seem to remember that soap bubbles form hexagons.

The centrifugal force on the water has been likened to gravity in artificial gravity machines (big centrifuges) and according to the equivalence principle the two are the same: So does gravity act in a likewise manner to produce hexagonal shapes?

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°
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My invisible elf ??? Why he is made of dark matter and lives off of dark energy !!!
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Probably has something to do with shear like in hydraulic lifts on earth. Water gets going to fast down a slope and it gets all burbly, slows down, then re-accelrates. If you have a straight, long enough trough that is uniform, it happens at a set distance. Here the trough runs around Saturns pole and the wind speed is high. I imagine the point where the pattern repeats is just where the wing speed, higher at the equator, less at the poles, shears the gas. If you look at the picture, you'll see that every peak of the bolt has a little tsunami likewaves crashin on the beach.

It's cool lookin though.

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TIME Man of the Year

Back a bunch of decades ago, Mr. Wizard used to do a demonstration
on his show by rubbing a sand-covered circular plate with a violin bow.

He could make a number of wild geometric shapes appear by bowing
in different ways.

He could also do the same by stirring colored liquids in different ways
and I'm guessing that's what you're seeing in the photo....


....ain't nothin' Mr. Wizard couldn't explain!!!

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Following the bucket link above I found this reference which describes polygonal eye walls in hurricanes which I think may have some relevance:

http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/15...63-11-1294.pdf

Revival.

This wasn't the only hexagon-on-Saturn thread, but it may be the earliest.

See also, at least:

• Hexagon on Saturn
• Hexagonal Structure at Saturn's North Pole
• Saturn Hexagon Superfluid Helium-3
• Saturn's hexagon

There was a heap of speculation that it was some mysterious process that formed the hexagon, up to and including its being an artifact from the hands of space aliens. It sounds like Emily Lakdawalla got a Q along similar lines, to which she provided the A:

Planetary Society Blog: Planetary Radio Q and A: Saturn's Hexagon

It sounds like it's just another example of a fluid doing fluidic things.

Abstract: Saturn's North Polar Hexagon Numerical Modeling Results, by Morales-Juberias, R.; Sayanagi, K. M.; Dowling, T. E.

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

So that's where the honeycomb hideout is located. On Saturn. Huh...

Heptagon. Greek prefixes.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Interestingly (or not ;-() we get the same sort of features on Earth (http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=3350) I think these are called Rayleigh-Benard convection cells. It is certainly surprising to see such large, distinct features on Saturn, but I don't think there are, say, aliens at work, or even any outré physics.

AAAARRRGHHH!!!! We have been invaded by the Qax!

I wonder if this will increase funding for space....the features on Saturn are being caused by alien terrorists!

In case you're not familiar, the Qax are an exotic alien species in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence books. They comprise of complex patterns of self-organising turbulence in a fluid, hexagonal convection cells are a typical feature of them.

Saturn's north pole is really very strange, I remember when Cassini sent back the first images of Saturn's north pole. It just totally blew me away!

Eric

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“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

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I just remembered that I still have the original image sent back from Cassini of Saturn's north pole in my database. It is most definitely a real cosmic oddity.

Eric

Attached Images

SNP.jpg (40.3 KB, 3 views)

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“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

My apologies. Something went wrong with the first upload. Let me try this again.

Attached Images

SNP.jpg (16.0 KB, 3 views)

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

Houston....we seem to have a problem here.

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

Weren't the Qax preceded by the Squeem?

Only because of a wormhole.