The image shown is of the north pole of Saturn (still considered a planet as of this writing) taken by the Cassini spacecraft. What explains the very regular hexagonal shape clearly visible?
"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."
27 comments:
Cool. Even better than Chesley Bonestell.
but, our spaceship is in THEIR atmosphere--so, we're the aliens this time. Hah!
Heh, but no artist trying for realism would have imagined a hexagon. Some sort of standing wave I would guess, although the straight sides are hard to explain. Maybe some alien race built large structures at the vertices ;)
Oh, wait a minute. That is obviously a hex nut holding the planet in place on its axis.
2007: A Space Oddity. Instead of Strauss, play Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee for the honeycomb hexagons.
It could be Bucky Fuller’s resting spot. But what particularly comes to mind is that space is not the final frontier. Consciousness is.
Yes, the straight sides leave me stumped, too. Too bad I had to study so hard in physics, only to forget it all...
I am old enough to know who Bucky Fuller is. Depressing.
But really, what the hell is it?
whatever it is, it's BIG--15,000 miles across.
No, those only have FIVE sides.
Whatever it is you may be sure it is a bad consequence of George W. Bush's hatred of the environment.
That's fer sure. Even if it's not true, it's true.
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.
Yikes! I like the four seasons just fine but 3 months or so is enough winter! Fifteen years of polar nights.
Then today, it sorta looks like a butterhorn, but then I didn't have breakfast.
yes--after your oatmeal, it'll be back to ALIENS!
Oatmeal with fresh strawberries, actually.
But it still looks like a butterhorn, though maybe an alien butterhorn.
"alien butterhorn" I think takes the internet to a new place.
Sadly, I don't think Chesley Bonestell ever painted a butterhorn. Just to get back on the thread and all.
Ahg, what a Philistine I am. I had thought he was a made-up joke name.
He's that guy!
I even Googled it, just in the interests of professional blogging accuracy.
Good gravy--each bullet is the size of our solar system, and shoots out @ 400 km/sec. Lessee, a million and a half kph, that's almost a million miles per hour. Jeez, my haid hurts, me no sabby comprendo.
Dammit Buddy, what kind of Spanish is that? It is "mí no sabe comprendo." Sheesh.
Like the alien problem isn't difficult enough already. How much will a space fence cost?
How much would a fence cost? 6.02 X 10 to the 23rd alien butterhorns. That's just a quick Galactic Means Estimate, mind you.
Mi no sabe comprendo quien necesita tener un steenkin perfectionisto.
:-(
(psst, Rick--don't let Dennis Kuchinich hear that!)
So sorryo si lo ofendidio. Or somethin'.
All you guys talking about butterhorns has got me hungry. I say we go out for enchiladas. Buddy's buyin'.
The honorable Dick Durbin has posted his recipe for butterhorns. I hope it is a bipartisan roll.
Ah, shoot--that's such a home-spun recipe page--I musta been wrong about ole Dick Durbin. Why, he's okay, so what if he's a l'il traitorious now n' then.
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