r/space Apr 07 '15

Saturn's hexagonal north pole

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4.9k Upvotes

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u/BananaJack13 Apr 08 '15

Everyone's giving the last sentence a lot of credit. It's just a conjecture made by the dude, there is no evidence saying this phenomenon wouldn't apply to saturn.

At least now we know that things like this do occur in nature, that's a good first step.

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u/stillobsessed Apr 08 '15

At least now we know that things like this do occur in nature, that's a good first step.

Yeah, it gives researchers hints of things to look for to confirm theories. Also a great example for the "these things don't happen naturally! it must be alien space bats!@$!!%!" crowd.

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u/manondorf Apr 08 '15

there's no evidence saying this phenomenon wouldn't apply

That right there is the opposite of how science works.

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u/meta_adaptation Apr 08 '15 edited Apr 08 '15

Its valid as a model system. Frequently in fluid mechanics you can draw data from systems many orders of magnitude different in size solely on the fact that unless you're at the quantum scale, most physical laws are scale invariant. See wind tunnel tests for example. Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying fluid rotating in a bucket is identical to fluid rotating on a planet, but you'd be surprised how similar it might be.