It was recently reported that there's a hexagonal rotating structure (see the image at left) at the North pole of Saturn.We may not have found other life in our Solar System, but we have, it appears, found a polygon. An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with NASA's Cassini mission.
NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft produced images of the hexagon over two decades ago. The fact that it has appeared in the recent Cassini images indicates that it is a long-lived feature. A second hexagon, significantly darker than the brighter historical feature, is also visible in the Cassini pictures. The spacecraft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is the first instrument to capture the entire hexagon feature in one image.
Now others have seen the same phenomenon in the lab.
The unusual phenomenon in question involves rotating a bottom plate under a liquid in a circular (cylindrical) container. Bohr and his team of students at the Technical University and at the Niels Bohr Institute set up an experiment to find out whether or not such conditions would lead to stable deformations of a water surface into polygon shapes. The findings from their experiment were published May 3rd in Physical Review Letters. Bohr tells PhysOrg.com that a somewhat similar experiment took place eight years ago with a different team (including Clive Ellegaard and others). “We had fluid falling on a plane, like water from a faucet. We found that even if the rim of the plate is completely circular, the fluid surface can be shaped like a polygon.”
While the first polygon experiment Bohr did involved stationary polygons, the most recent effort shows rotating polygons. “Not only are these shapes rotating,” says Bohr, “but they are rotating at a different speed than the plate beneath them.”This is a fascinating phenomena that is, apparently, unexplained as yet. Here's another site for a video and more links.
(Hat tip: Ilachina)
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