Saturn's Mysterious Hexagon Emerges from Winter Darkness

ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2009) — After waiting years for the sun to illuminate Saturn's north pole again, cameras aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft have captured the most detailed images yet of the intriguing hexagon shape crowning the planet.

The new images of the hexagon, whose shape is the path of a jet stream flowing around the north pole, reveal concentric circles, curlicues, walls and streamers not seen in previous images. Images and the three-frame animation are available at www.nasa.gov...
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov... and
ciclops.org....

SOURCE: www.sciencedaily.com...

Pretty cool stuff! I wonder about this statement though:

Scientists are still trying to figure out what causes the hexagon

I thought that this was due to high winds in the atmosphere. This affect has been created in the lab...I think it was Tomas Bohr's spinning water bucket. Here is a pic of the lab experiment...I've seen video before, but can't find it now.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f5b80572b075.jpg[/atsimg]

Enjoy!

EDIT: forgot to add a link to the source


[edit on 10-12-2009 by Aggie Man]

There has got to be some really strange magnetic forces at work on Saturn for something like that to occur.

I wonder if, like iron filings forming shapes on a table under the influence of a magnet, there is something similar happening on Saturn. Snow flakes have hexagonal patterns, so maybe it has something to do some inner planetary massive crystalline structure?