Hexagonal water!

Water does some strange stuff. But, generally speaking, doesn't do hexagonal. Well... obviously, if you put it in a hexagonal container it does. Or if you freeze it and carve it.

And if you take it into space it will do odd stuff, like this.....

Where was I? Oh yeah. Liquid water - it won't do hexagons, or angular shapes generally. The technical terminology is that it's 'too runny' or possibly 'squashy'*.

Angular liquid water.....that'd just be crazy, right?

Below we have a view, from above, of a spinning tank of good old squashy water. The lights are off, and a glowing green dye is injected into the bucket so we can see how the water is flowing:

Tah-dah, hexagonal water!

What's that?  Not impressive enough?  Wondering what's the damn point?
Well NASA found this one, which bigger than Earth and forms the same way, stamped onto the clouds over Saturns north pole....

......and, in kind of 'fuck you universe' moment, someone re-created this colossal wonder in a fish tank.

How? Well the middle of the tank isn't connected to the outer edge, and is spinning at a different rate. So the water has to spin at two different rates, and if you get the ratio of the two rates of spin right the resulting turbulence forms a hexagon all by itself - that's just how the 'laws' of physics play out under those conditions.

On Saturn it's due to wind speed: The winds are blowing around the pole, and near the pole they blow at a different speed than further away, setting up the same kind of turbulence.

One of natures irritating little miracles. But at least it's given the conspiracy nuts something new to chew on....

 

Saturn: Victim of gigantic graffiti artists, with an immense spray can? Um. No. Why would they have just drawn a grey hexagon? C'mon at least try and think it through...

 

 

*'Squashy' is my three year old daughters explanation for why water doesn't make shapes. It's a good word.