f13.net

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17816192/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17816192/) That photo weirds me out. It's pretty damn even and very....hexagonal.

ZOMG SATURN IS THE WELL OF SOULS!

One of my early cynical thoughts when I first saw this was "I wonder if some techie at Nasa got bored and photoshopped this and is now scared to admit it?" That was blown by reading it was seen decades ago.

I think it's very interesting.  In surface chemistry it's common to see metals align in hexagonal patterns, but that's on an atomic scale.  Something of this magnitude is pretty bizarre, particularly considering the composition of the gasses in the atmosphere.  I wonder if it speaks to the magnetic fields found at Saturn's poles and perhaps some excited state chemical species in the upper atmosphere?

Could it be some weird bug in the imaging algorithms of the camera or something?

I bet a passing sattelite accidentally dropped a hexagonal box of chocolates on the way to Pluto, and we're just now seeing the waves.

Of course not, don't be ridiculous.  It's the native Saturnoians (Saturnites?  Satunarians?) trying to communicate.  :-D

The adjective "Of Saturn" is "Saturnine".  I don't know if we'd call them "Saturnines", though.  But their food would be called Saturnine food.  Good to eat if you hate life.

I think if I were God I'd screw with humans by putting a big middle finger formation on Mars. Saturn hexagons are bush league.

If I were God, you fuckers would never get any rest.  There'd be a hundred-yard wide flaming duck floating over Times Square shitting clowns, and you'd be up to your waists in aardvarks that hiss and spit blood.  It would be wall-to-wall awesome.

Obviously Saturn has been colonized by giant space bees.

That's why the bees are dissappearing!

I predict it is something simple like six vortices created by counter-rotating winds.

I vote for either Saturnites or the subtly comical Saturninites.

I wanted to come up with a joke response, but I'm too stressed out.  Besides, I can't beat WUA's deranged vision.

I was thinking that it might be an effect of some long-standing giant storm (such as the great spot on Jupiter) causing a shock wave effect from atmospheric reflection. There are shock waves that transfer the energy from the wave front in a linear manner - if this is happening omnidirectionally from a point source, the linear wave fronts would presumably link geometrically - in this case into a hexagon. All bullshit from somebody who doesn't know enough science to do more than guess though. :)

70s sci-fi was all about the hexagons. (http://www.wists.com/everyone/70s/fac7801630eb1e8ea6719b59094d079e)

Well, I think I read an article linked to that one that mentioned a giant storm somewhere on Saturn's south pole that looked like a human eye. Maybe it is causing it?

Here it is:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061109_monster_storm.html (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061109_monster_storm.html)

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And your copy version of the bible.

Yeah, maybe the big-ass storm on the opposite side of the planet is swirling things around to the extent that the 'ripples' are all collecting up at the northern pole.

Or, perhaps the southern storm is a portal to Chaos and the planet is full of demons.  Won't know till we get there, I suppose.

If it were to Chaos, it'd be an 8-pointed star, so that's clearly not the case.

It does remind me of the loading scrrens for Doom3 though, so maybe it's the portal to Hell.

Sweet. We sooo have a real life sci-fi horror movie building. I bet NASA is already suppressing images of what happened to the spacecraft after it took the pictures.

SEND IN THE ROCK!

After reading this thread, all I can think is "Event Horizon."

This is far cooler than a trashy movie which changes genres an hour and fifty in.

Hexagon movie (http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000927/), Venus' vortex, and polygons in rotating fluid experiment article.

Some speculation (http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=sciastro&Number=689912&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=) (Benard-Maringoni convection) and Voyager images of the hexagon.

Fuck, that sounds filthy.