Talk:Saturn's hexagon

"Summary"
The so called "summary" in the main Saturn article is longer than this one! It does however have fewer pictures. Should this be flipped around? --Curiousdannii (talk) 14:00, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The second sentence says "which is more than the diameter of Earth." Can this be changed to the more specific "which is about twice the diameter of Earth" instead? It's closer to 2.166, but I think "about twice" is specific enough. -T Cablio (talk) 01:25, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Explanation
Sooo... Oxford produced a two-sided shape, eh? Hope they patented it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.233.169.219 (talk) 20:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I wish this was facebook so I could like this comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.106.142.37 (talk) 20:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * A two sided shape would be a bar with a vortex on opposing sides.Lumos3 (talk) 18:54, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I believe that some form of explanation of the phenomenon could be provided in the article. Something like this: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/saturns-strange-hexagon-recreate.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.6.54.173 (talk) 02:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. I browsed here from todays APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130220.html, leading to the discussion page at http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30754, and from there to the article by Emily Lakdawall at http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2010/2471.html which discusses the work of Ana Claudia Barbosa Aguiar and Peter Read. -84user (talk) 13:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a video clip of the waves forming in the Oxford University experimental model here Saturn's Hexagon Replicated In Laboratory which uses white 'tracer' particles. There's another clip using green dye as a tracer here. These cannot at present be included in the article as it they are not a reliable source. Lumos3(talk) 09:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * See WP:YT. Not only are the video clips primary sources that are not reliable, but they very well may be copyright violations, because neither poster seems affiliated with Oxford. —hike395 (talk) 13:23, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone even bothered to ask whether the hexagon on Saturn was carefully placed there just to make astrophysicists look stupid for trying to come up with an explanation? I mean, there are so many anomalies about Saturn that nobody asks, like "Why do the rings orbit exactly about the equator with no inclination?" The moon (luna) doesn't rotate about earth's equator since it's inclination is about 5°. Do the rings have a perfectly-circular orbit or do they follow an elliptical path (two vertices instead of one)? There are questions that aren't even being mentioned and I'm sure that there are no good answers out there, since God put Saturn together in such a way as to make fools out of followers of "big-bang" uniformitarianism cosmologies.

Pictures
A gallery should be considered. No one goes to commons to view pictures. Check the viewing history of the page Poles of Saturn, and the forwarded pages to it North pole of Saturn, Polar storms of Saturn. The commons page gets a few tens of visits, while wikipedia's gets hundreds, to a few thousand visits. Sidelight 12 Talk 02:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Whether this article should cover storms of both polar regions
There are similarities between both polar storms that can be covered together. Sidelight 12 Talk 02:39, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Rotation
Quoting from the article, "It rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s, the same period as Saturn's radio emissions from its interior."

The cited source, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17809277, seems to indicate that the rotation of the the hexagon is not the same as the periodicity in radio emissions.

The crucial sentence in the abstract that leads me to believe that the wiki sentence is an error is this:

'In the study reported here, this process is carried one stage further, with the derivation of a rotation rate for the spot associated with Satum's polar hexagon, which is simultaneously WITHIN AND MORE ACCURATE THAN the Saturnian radio period.'

The key words in that sentence being 'within and more accurate,' doesn't seem to mean 'same period as.'

Before making any changes, I would like to get some feedback. Maybe the full text (which I do not have access to) of the referenced article verifies the wiki article, or maybe I am missing something. Thank you for future attention! — Preceding unsigned comment added by John11235813 (talk • contribs) 23:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, As the original author of "The Rotation Period of Saturn's Polar Hexagon". Science. 247 (4947), I may be able to explain this. Saturn like Jupiter has no visible solid surface - thus it's hard to define a rotation period. With Jupiter they did originally try using the Great Red Spot, but as an atmospheric feature this drifts a bit. Then they discovered that Jupiter produced periodic radio signals believed to modulated by the rotation of the planet, from these it was possible to define a rotation period (see the page on Jupiter and System III period). Similar, but less clear radio signals were found from Saturn and used to similarly define a rotation period (although this has since proved problematic - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere_of_Saturn - section Saturn kilometric radiation). As a result of the above when I measured the rotation rate of the hexagon between the Voyager 1 and 2 visits I came up with a rotation rate that was both within the error bars of the existing 'internal' rotation rate, and was more precise. In an atmosphere where everything drifts around it's impossible to says any two things have EXACTLY the same period. Hope this helps. D. Godfrey. Kewnut (talk) 14:24, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

"The hexagon does not shift in longitude"
This phrase doesn't make sense- an object at a pole can't shift in longitude. Is this supposed to say that the sides don't shift in longitude? In other words, that the hexagon doesn't rotate? KingSupernova (talk) 15:27, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The Hexagon is an extended object. It isn't located solely at the geometric pole, but rather at finite latitudes away from the Pole. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 00:22, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Possible explanation
I think that it's an ice cap - not improbable: other planets have them. My theory is that this one is composed of ice (water) that has crystallised into one huge mass - basically, the biggest snowflake that you can imagine, and then some. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The Gas Giants don't have polar ice caps. Everything you see superficially on Saturn is gaseous, a fluid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 00:24, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your suppositions are not only baseless and counterfactual, but completely irrelevant here. -- 184.189.217.210 (talk) 06:05, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Are the sides of the hexagon about 13,800 km (8,600 mi) long?
Does anyone know where this numerical value come from? I can’t find it at its citation website (here). --Doraemonplus (talk) 12:40, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment - and question - seems a casual internet search found two relevant references - which have now been added to the lede of the main article - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:00, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you a lot. Incidentally, I have another question. If we assume that the hexagon is a regular hexagon and let us draw a circumcircle about it, twice the side of 13,800 km should equal to the circumcircle’s diameter, right? However, there seems to be a gap between the diameter by our calculation and the width of the hexagon as described in the article (the former is 27,600 km and the latter is 32,000 km). It doesn’t look an error for me. Is it possibly a matter of the definition of the width of a hexagon? What do you think about? —Doraemonplus (talk) 15:17, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * YES - Seems you may be correct about this - according to the "hexagon" article, the side of a hexagon is the same as the radius (ie, maximal radius or "circumradius") - and twice this radius is the diameter - in this case, the hexagon side is given as 13,800 km - which is the same as the radius - and twice this radius is 27,600 km - seems there may be a discrepancy somewhere - perhaps the cited side is in error - or the cited diameter - or possibly both - may need to find a more reliable source I would think to sort this out - in any case - thanks for the comments - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 18:07, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * BRIEF Followup - seems better references may be studies published in "Geophysical Research Letters" and "Nature communications" - which both note that the hexagon side (radius) to be "14,500 km" - if true, then the width (diameter) of the hexagon would be twice this value, or "29,000 km" - updated the lede accordingly, with these more reliable cited values - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 18:57, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Finally, I understand. Thank you again for your friendly help and updating the text. Have a nice weekend! :-) Doraemonplus (talk) 05:50, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It won't be exact, since the side of a hexagon is the same as the radius only for a plane hexagon - one that is completely flat. But Saturn's hexagon is not flat, it is on the surface of (what approximates to) an oblate spheroid, and so the radius will be slightly greater than the side length. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 07:04, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello. Well, I've got that the planet forms an oblate spheroid. I think it is better to describe that effect into the article until the accurate specifications of Saturn's hexagon on its curved surface is discovered. --Doraemonplus (talk) 08:05, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

FWIW - added the following note to the lede => NOTE: A planar hexagon width (diameter) is twice the side (radius); but since the planet Saturn approximates an oblate spheroid, the radius of such an hexagon may be a bit greater than its side length (ie, 14,500 km), making the width (diameter) a bit greater than 29,000 km.  - *entirely* ok with me to rv/rm/mv/ce the note of course - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:17, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Rotation
Might seem like I’m splitting hairs but I want a better explanation of “rotation”.

The article doesn’t say. And 2 links don’t help.

I can see that the gas is rotating; but I can’t see if the sides of the hexagon are rotating (about the centre of the hexagon).

In the links; Video of hexagon's rotation from NASA I can’t see the shape of a hexagon. Animated vortex view (TPS). Only 3 frames; no movement of the sides.

MBG02 (talk) 19:03, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Confusion: No polygonal pattern? Or no polygonal pattern similar to that/those on Jupiter?
The current article text contains:

”Although apparently shielded, the polar cyclone on Saturn cannot hold a polygonal pattern such as Jupiter's due to the bigger size of Saturn's polar cyclones.”

This confuses me in the context of the article, which is about … a hexagon, no less, which is a polygon in my book. An explanation might be in the interpretation of “the polar cyclone on Saturn cannot hold a polygonal pattern such as Jupiter's”:


 * Cannot Saturn’s polar cyclone (which the article states exists at the North Pole) hold a polygonal pattern? [That seems to contradict the existence of the article’s subject.]


 * Or is Saturn’s polygonal pattern different from that/those on Jupiter, and is that what is intended?

Can someone clarify this?Redav (talk) 16:58, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Can be recreated, explanations provided...but...why a hexagon?
Much of what we see here simply states that the phenomenon can be re-created, and provides the conditions that produce it...but we never answer the question "why a hexagon?"...why not a square, or a pentagon? Both shapes have radial symmetry, and force vectors could be distributed to produce those shapes...so...why a hexagon? 2603:6010:5303:8631:25A7:E23F:3498:E723 (talk) 08:12, 15 August 2023 (UTC)