Gigantic hexagon in Saturn clouds

[Baby Astronaut]

Posting this for anyone who might not be familiar with the newer observations of this peculiarity. I'm not sure if they even know how it really forms yet.

 

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070327_saturn_hex.html

 

http://www.space.com/common/media/video.php?videoRef=070327Saturn_hexagon

 

The hexagon's mentioned in the following link, where the giant cyclones at each pole were seen last year in higher detail than ever before.

 

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/081013-cassini-storms.html

 

One possible explanation for the hexagon was referenced by Norman Albers on a previous thread. Another potential explanation is thought to be a standing waves pattern.

 

Just wondering if anyone has other ideas on this. It really blew my mind first time I saw it.

[D H]

One possible explanation for the hexagon was referenced by Norman Albers on a previous thread. Another potential explanation is thought to be a standing waves pattern.

In one sense, those are complementary rather than conflicting explanations. In another sense, neither explains the phenomenon at all.

 

The first link reports experiments by Tomas Bohr (quite a family lineage there, Son and grandson of Nobel physicists!) that creates polygonal structures in rotating fluids in a lab environment. Bohr does not offer an explanation of the phenomenon. From the physorg article,

Right now, admits Bohr, there is little known of these rotating polygons beyond the fact that they exist, and that they behave in ways nobody expected. “We think this is a spectacular phenomenon” he says, “but we don’t know why it works. Maybe someone will get a bright idea when they read our paper.”

Bottom line: The first link is not an explanation of the phenomenon. What is significant is Bohr's work gives us a way to replicate the phenomenon in a controlled environment.

 

The wikipedia article simply states without reference that the phenomenon is a standing wave. I could not find any pages at jpl.nasa.gov that call this a standing wave phenomenon. The closest is this, "The hexagon appears to have remained fixed with Saturn's rotation rate and axis since first glimpsed by Voyager 26 years ago", from http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20070327.html. Even if this is a standing wave phenomenon, that does not explain it. It is merely a kinematic observation. As an analogy, consider the problem of uniform circular motion. The kinematics of a planet in a circular orbit and a rock at the end of a string swung in a circle about one's head are exactly the same. The dynamical explanations of a planet's circular orbit and the rock's circular motion are quite different.

 

Bottom line: The wiki article is not an explanation of the phenomenon. It is dubious that this is a standing wave phenomenon. Even if it were, kinematics is not an explanation.

[Baby Astronaut]

Thanks for pointing out the lack of reference. I should've looked What I'm mainly interested in is others thoughts here or a plausible explanation.

 

Also, furthering the chances that someone reading the paper will get a bright idea.

[D H]

The Navier-Stokes equations that underly fluid dynamics are notoriously non-linear and have some wierd non-linear solutions such as solitons. Pure conjecture: This is a 2D (3D) analog of a 1D soliton.