APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
SebastienP

Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by SebastienP » Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:14 pm

Hi, there is this picture to see its compared size to that of the Earth:
Image

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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:58 pm

Cool! Very complex structure. Swirls and eddies. To me it looks like a giant drain. Wonder if there isn't massive convection going on? It's got to be a lot colder up there. :wink:
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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:36 pm

It would be interesting if it reflected some structure underneath.
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msgiz

Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by msgiz » Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:47 pm

I, too, saw the documentary with the hexagonal patterns in the weather around Antarctica and was going to make the same comments as the previous commenter!

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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:59 pm

Anyone know if surface elevation measurements are possible? I suppose measuring the tops of gas clouds might be difficult. Surely if we could it would tells us a lot.
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Doug Stern

Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by Doug Stern » Wed Feb 20, 2013 10:26 pm

Hexagonal pattern probably linked to the speed of the winds at Saturn's pole.
In the last year or three, CBC [Canadian radio] radio program Quirks and Quarks interviewed professor at Dalhousie University studying fluid dynamics, and he related how as one speeds up a liquid vortex, one gets a progression of shapes from triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, etc as the vortex is speeded up. I contacted the professor re the hexagonal pattern on Saturn and he thought it could be explained by this process.

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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by neufer » Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:23 pm

Doug Stern wrote:
In the last year or three, CBC [Canadian radio] radio program Quirks and Quarks interviewed professor at Dalhousie University studying fluid dynamics, and he related how as one speeds up a liquid vortex, one gets a progression of shapes from triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, etc as the vortex is speeded up. I contacted the professor re the hexagonal pattern on Saturn and he thought it could be explained by this process.
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=30276&p=188834#p188826 wrote:
<<The population of Flatland can "evolve" through the "Law of Nature", which states: "a male child shall have one more side than his father, so that each generation shall rise (as a rule) one step in the scale of development and nobility. Thus the son of a Triangle is a Square, the son of a Square is a Pentagon, the son of a Pentagon, a Hexagon; and so on.">>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalhousie_University wrote:
Image
<<Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dalhousie or Dal) is a public research university with three campuses in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and a fourth, the Dalhousie Agricultural Campus, in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia. It is one of Canada's oldest universities, founded during British colonial rule.

The current motto used by the university is Ora et Labora. The Latin motto is literally translated as "pray and work" and has been in use since 1870. The university had adopted the motto from the Earl of Dalhousie in order to replace the university's original motto, as the original motto was viewed by the university administration to not convey confidence. The original motto of the university was "Forsan". This Latin motto is literally translated as Perhaps and first appeared in the first Dalhousie Gazette of 1869. It was chosen from Virgil's epic poem Aeneid, Book 1, line 203, Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. The Latin motto is literally translated as "Perhaps the time may come when these difficulties will be sweet to remember".

A number of songs are commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement, convocation, and athletic contests, including the Carmina Dalhousiana.>>
Last edited by neufer on Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by neufer » Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:33 pm

Image
Ron-Astro Pharmacist wrote:
It would be interesting if it reflected some structure underneath.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagon_%28disambiguation%29 wrote:
The Hexagon (l' Hexagone) is an epithet of France, owing to the shape of its European mainland. A regular hexagon is depicted on France's one- and two-euro coins

The Hexagon is the name of the national military headquarters in Batman (TV series); compare with The Pentagon
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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by ta152h0 » Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:44 pm

I wonder if this structure, gigantic as it is, is related to sound waves, like water on a speaker at some specific frequency ?
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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by Rmcdowell70 » Fri Feb 22, 2013 7:35 pm

Found this article on the yahoo science page....any connection?

http://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-star-shap ... 55730.html

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Re: APOD: Saturns Hexagon and Rings (2013 Feb 20)

Post by jensenq » Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:56 pm

Maybe it's not so much a hexagon, as it is a near sinusoidal wave mapped onto near the top of a sphere. In that case, could it just be resonance? What does it look like mapped to a cylinder and then amplified a bit?

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