mtbc: photograph of me (Default)
Mark T. B. Carroll ([personal profile] mtbc) wrote2017-09-15 07:48 am

My prior ignorance of Saturn's hexagon

It turns out that Saturn's North pole bears a cloud pattern that is strikingly hexagonal and so large that the Earth would easily fit inside. I watch a lot of science and space documentaries, I have read and watched much science fiction that included travel within our planetary system, I was awarded an A grade for GCSE Astronomy, so how is it only this week that I learned of Saturn's hexagon? Was it only me who didn't know or was it not widely considered to be remarkable? I can hardly imagine a better advertisement for why it might be interesting to study fluid dynamics. Now I come to try to learn more of the phenomenon I read that the effect has been recreated both in simulation and in the laboratory.

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