Possible Clue On Saturn's Hexagon? 70
permaculture sends us to nature.com for a description of new (and old) research that might possibly shed some light on the origin of the hexagon around Saturn's north pole. Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have spun buckets of water, in much the same way Isaac Newton did, and photographed geometrical whirlpools developing. As the buckets are spun up, central holes develop that are first elliptical, then triangular, then square, pentagonal, and hexagonal. A UT Austin researcher is quoted as saying it's unlikely this process is behind the Saturn mystery.
First time around... (Score:5, Informative)
Dan East
Slow news day... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Chaos theory (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two Minor Things (Score:2, Informative)
No. The hexagon is huge. See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multime
Re:Benard cells? (Score:4, Informative)