Saturn’s mysterious hexagon
There was a recent story about new images from Cassini. It showed a hexagonal shape at the north pole of Saturn. Apparently this shape was first identified in 1980 during the Voyager mission, and scientists were excited to see that it has remained.
It’s interesting that when people see a regular shape that there is a sense of something unnatural about it. That maybe it’s unexplainable or even supernatural. Some of the comments on the Daily Mail site are instructive:
With each exciting discovery comes mystery. Which, in my estimation proves that the universe didn’t evolve. It was created by God.
- Frank, Charleston, SC USA
Wow, a hexagon shaped object on Saturn! There is so much more to our existence than meets the eye! That is what I think.
- Elaine Abbate, Paterson, NJ
Now why this shape hints at a universe shaped by God perplexes me. It’s as if any new mystery will always remain a mystery, or that somehow, if we don’t have a current explanation then we will never have one. To me this type of thinking is reminiscent of ancient superstition. We don’t know what caused that lightning bolt, well then one of the gods is mad at us. We’ve come a long way from explaining natural events like lightning through purely natural means, there’s no reason to think that this odd shape on Saturn won’t be explained as well.
In fact, there are already some hints at a physical explanation. The Planetary Society Blog shows us an experiment by some physicists demonstrating how they have created stable polygonal shapes in rotating fluids in a laboratory.
It’s unknown at this point whether these phenomenon are related, but I expect that Saturn’s hexagon will have a fully natural explanation.
(via Bad Astronomy)
Strange that people can get so excited about something like this and think it means so much more. Crystals found in nature are a variety of regular shapes. Granted, it may be impressive that this hexagon is apparently large, but still… does it prove God’s existence that tree trunks are round? I think not. In fact, it might be more impressive if we saw something more creative and less geometric on the surface of distant planet somewhere – a crater the exact shape of a cow, for example.
Shauna
April 4th, 2007
7:15 pm
Indeed. It’s a similar argument against God healing the sick. He only seems to heal the people that might’ve gotten better anyway. He never grows back a limb, for instance.
Shinka
April 4th, 2007
8:49 pm
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tjansson.dk » Blogarkiv » Hexagon på Saturns nordpol
April 18th, 2007
3:18 am
Why are we surprised by the discovery of this hexagon. Geometric shapes are found at every size scale in nature.
Jim McDade
April 2nd, 2008
4:47 pm
I think the shape of the hexagon on saturn’s North pole is very important. It is a very evil shape in the midst of a very troubled planet, where storms can pick up in excess of 1000 miles an hour. There are two other things that are of note… On the South pole of Saturn is a perfect ‘eye’ of the storm. It is one of the only places you can actually see Saturn’s surface on the whole planet. Also, when Saturn is experience a solar eclipse it will appear along with its rings that encircle it to form what appears to be an EYE. To me the eye is a symbol of evil, I’m particularly thinking of the eye on the back of the $1U.S. bill. Another evil symbol of the eye.
adahon
February 15th, 2009
6:09 pm