The hexagonal vortex at Saturn’s North Pole is twice as large as our planet.
The huge hexagonal vortex at planet Saturn’ north pole has been puzzling scientists for decades. Now, researchers at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology claim that they may have a theory on how the gigantic cloud hexagon formed.
The weird pattern was first spotted by NASA scientists in the late 1980s while they were sifting through the data collected by the space agency’s Voyager spacecraft during its historic flybys of the second-largest planet in our solar system.
But the cloud pattern was finally confirmed by Cassini orbiter during a recent close flyby of the planet. NASA scientists suggested that they have never seen a similar pattern on any of the other worlds they studied so far.
The 20,000 mile-wide hexagonal vortex has a never-ending storm at its center, and it goes as low as 60 miles into the planet’s atmosphere. Past studies had suggested a multitude of theories to explain the origin of the strange phenomenon.
Some scientists likened the hexagon with the patterns one gets when swirling water inside a bucket. When that happens whirlpools dotted with holes of geometric shape emerge but no one recalls seeing a giant water bucket around Saturn’s north pole.
The data gathered by NASA’s two missions provide some clues on how the cosmic whirlpool may have formed. For instance, the six corners of the hexagon spin around its core at the same rate the gas giant revolves around its axis. Additionally, a jet stream flows along the bizarre shape’s outline at speeds of 220 mph.
Recently a group of researchers disclosed that they were able to design a computer model that could provide an explanation to the hexagonal vortex.
“With a very simple model, we have been able to match many of the observed properties of the hexagon,”
noted Raúl Morales-Juberías, lead author of the findings and researcher at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
The computer model showed that the said jet stream was flowing in a circular trajectory around the planet’s north pole, while interfering permanent air currents gave it the odd hexagonal form we see in Saturn imagery. Scientists were able to confirm their theory by pushing the computerized hexagonal vortex to speeds close to the real one.
Scientists explained that the odd shaped is caused by shallow air currents at the cloud level, while strong air currents bellow the cloudy area help those jets maintain the hexagonal form and control the speed rate at which the vortex spins.
Image Source: Wikipedia
by Babu G. Ranganathan
(B.A. Bible/Biology)
SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE UNIVERSE CANNOT BE ETERNAL because it could not have sustained itself eternally due to the law of entropy (increasing and irreversible net energy decay, even in an open system). Even a hypothetical oscillating universe could not continue to oscillate eternally! Einstein showed that space, matter, and time all are physical and all had a beginning. Space even produces particles because it’s actually something, not nothing. What about the Higgs boson (the so-called “God Particle”)? The Higgs boson does not create mass from nothing, but rather it converts energy into mass. Einstein showed that all matter is some form of energy. Even time had a beginning! Time is not eternal.
The law of entropy doesn’t allow the universe to be eternal. If the universe were eternal, everything, including time (which modern science has shown is as physical as mass and space), would have become totally entropied by now and the entire universe would have ended in a uniform heat death a long, long time ago. The fact that this hasn’t happened already is powerful evidence for a beginning to the universe.
Popular atheistic scientist Stephen Hawking admits that the universe had a beginning and came from nothing but he believes that nothing became something by a natural process yet to be discovered. That’s not rational thinking at all, and it also would be making the effect greater than its cause to say that nothing created something. The beginning had to be of supernatural origin because natural laws and processes do not have the ability to bring something into existence from nothing.
The supernatural origin of the universe cannot be proved by science but science points to a supernatural intelligence and power for the origin and order of the universe. Where did God come from? Obviously, unlike the universe, God’s nature doesn’t require a beginning.
EXPLAINING HOW AN AIRPLANE WORKS doesn’t mean no one made the airplane. Explaining how life or the universe works doesn’t mean there was no Maker behind them. Natural laws may explain how the order in the universe works and operates, but mere undirected natural laws cannot explain the origin of that order. Once you have a complete and living cell then the genetic code and biological machinery exist to direct the formation of more cells, but how could life or the cell have naturally originated when no directing code and mechanisms existed in nature? Read my Internet article: HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM.
Even the father of Chaos theory admitted that the “mechanisms” existing in the non-living world allow for only very rudimentary levels of order to arise spontaneously (by chance), but not the kind or level of order we find in the structures of DNA, RNA, and proteins. Yes, individual amino acids have been shown to come into existence by chance but not protein molecules which require that the various amino acids be in a precise sequence just like the letters found in a sentence.
The disorder in the universe can be explained because of chance and random processes, but the order can be explained only because of intelligence and design.
WHAT IS SCIENCE? Science simply is knowledge based on observation. No human observed the universe coming by chance or by design, by creation or by evolution. These are positions of faith. The issue is which faith the scientific evidence best supports.
Some things don’t need experiment or scientific proof. In law there is a dictum called prima facie evidence. It means “evidence that speaks for itself.”
An example of a true prima facie would be if you discovered an elaborate sand castle on the beach. You don’t have to experiment to know that it came by design and not by the chance forces of wind and water.
If you discovered a romantic letter or message written in the sand, you don’t have to experiment to know that it was by design and not because a stick randomly carried by wind put it there. You naturally assume that an intelligent and rational being was responsible.
It’s interesting that Carl Sagan would have acknowledged sequential radio signals in space as evidence of intelligent life sending them, but he wouldn’t acknowledge the sequential structure of molecules in DNA (the genetic code) as evidence of an intelligent Cause. Read my popular Internet article, HOW DID MY DNA MAKE ME.
Visit the author’s popular Internet article, BIG HOLES IN BIG BANG THEORY
Read the Internet article, ‘SMOKING GUN’ PROOF OF BIG BANG ALREADY IN DOUBT by creationist and scientist Dr. Jake Hebert.
I encourage all to read my popular Internet articles: NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION and HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM
Visit my newest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION
Babu G. Ranganathan*
(B.A. Bible/Biology)
Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I’ve been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis “Who’s Who in The East” for my writings on religion and science.
Why bring bible malarkey into this, this has nothing to do with creation, this was about finding the mechanism by which this unusual storm on saturn operates. Why do somebody always have to bring up a magic man in the sky and a fairytale book when hard science is being discussed?