A Giant Hexagon Appeared On the Surface Of Jupiter

Introduction to Jupiter

From what it is, to the complexities it adds to the planet known as Jupiter, and more, join me as we explore a giant hexagon that has appeared on the surface of Jupiter!

Among the many planets in our solar system, one that continues to demand attention from us here on Earth is Jupiter. Not only is it the largest planet in our solar system, but it’s one that has very unique features an events going on that honestly doesn’t happen on other planets near us. And just when you think it’s done revealing all of its secrets to you, it goes and has another thing happen.

This very unusual discovery was made by the Juno Space Probe very recently, and it’s an event that at present honestly doesn’t have a scientific explanation. But we’ll do our best to describe it to you. This event is currently happening in the atmosphere of Jupiter, and it can only be described as a “whirlwind” of power that is the size of Australia! For the record, it’s 2.9 million square miles in size. Does that have your attention yet? No? Then how about this?

The Hexagonal Formation on Jupiter

This even isn’t one thing, it’s 7. The first one is the one we just described to you, a massive whirlwind event the size of Australia, but now, I need you to multiply that by six, and then have those six new entities surround the first one in such a way that it honestly makes a hexagonal shape.

This is something you’d likely think is science fiction, or a projection of something that COULD happen one day, but it’s real, and it’s happening right now on Jupiter. The Juno probe found this at the planets south pole when the craft was just 2000 miles above the cloud layer.

Going back to the 7 whirlwinds, even the smallest of them has an area that is slightly larger than the state of Texas! This should go to prove that this isn’t just a weird set of coincidences, this is an event that has been building and is perfectly placed where it is for a reason. But what that reason is? Your guess is as good as mine.

But here’s the rub, at one point in time, there was only 6 of them, and they were shaped in a pentagon formation (with the biggest one being in the center like it is now). It only got to hexagonal shape after another joined the pod.

One of the biggest reasons that people are paying attention to this is the fact that this formation has to be recent because it has NEVER been found on Jupiter before. Now, granted, we haven’t known EVERYTHING about Jupiter, even now we’re still discovering things like the fact that it has a lot more moons than we expected. However, for something of this size to go unnoticed for so long would be like the great red spot being missed for centuries until we “got the right look” and realized it was there the whole time.

For further proof of this notion, I guide you to the fact that various cyclones and hurricane-like entities have already been found on Jupiter in the past, including the Great Red Spot. The problem here is the formation. While it’s not hard to believe that a massive cyclone or hurricane kind of thing would happen on a gas planet for all sorts of reasons, for them to “sync up” like they are doing and creating a shape that defies explanation is rather mind-boggling.

Hexagons on the other planets in the Solar System

This only gets magnified when you realize that there is something somewhat similar on Saturn right now. Because observations of that planet revealed its own hexagonal shape at the NORTH pole. But here’s the twist, unlike the Jupiter hexagon, Saturn’s is actually one entity. So much so that you can CLEARLY see how it’s one giant shape because its size is 15,534 miles across! Which for the record is enough to cover a hemisphere on the planet Earth. And as for its height, it rises 62 miles into the atmosphere, meaning that if it was on Earth…we’ll let’s just say that it would be bad for the planet and leave it at that, ok?

Going back to the shape, whether it be the Jupiter or Saturn hexagon, you’ll find that it’s nearly impossible to find such a shape here on Earth that is so perfectly formed. You can find things close to it, or you could make-make it yourself, but a natural formation or storm has never been found to be like these, and definitely not at the size that they are at.

And while we may not know what exactly is causing the events on Jupiter, we do have a solid guess on how the hexagon shape is forming on Saturn.

Oxford University did an experiment that revealed that if you were to accelerate water to the fastest points of the winds of Saturn, and the push beyond it, and then have certain rings within the container that would rotate in opposite directions to the whirlwinds, then you will be able to “shape” the water in order to make a hexagon. They were even able to make triangles and ovals as well.

This experiment showed that the winds on Saturn are at points going faster than the rotation of the atmosphere, and thus allowing the points on the Hexagon to form. And its long-standing nature has shown that these forces are able to sustain their points for extremely long periods of time. This is in part to the hurricanes power, making it one of the most powerful hurricanes in the entire solar system as we know of it right now.

Now, if you know about hurricanes, you know that in every single one there is an “eye of the storm”. This “eye” is the literal center point of the storm, and if you are in it, you are in the safest part of the entity. In regards to the Saturn hexagonal hurricane, if you were to measure the eye of the hurricane, you would find that it is 50 times larger than the biggest hurricane that has EVER been on Earth.

How’s that for a massive upgrade?

Though it should be noted that this massive hexagon shape it not like the hurricanes we have here on Earth. The one on Saturn is filled with gasses that are more akin to the kind you’d find in a volcanic eruption! And because there is no ground or rocks to help contain the gasses, they remain within the hexagonal ring itself. That’s why the hurricane has been going on with Saturn for many hundreds of years.

Source: Wikipedia

“Has nothing changed about it in all that time?” you might be asking, and the answer is yes, something has changed, it’s color. But why it changes color likely isn’t what you are expecting. You see, one of the biggest differences between Saturn and Earth isn’t just its size and the fact it’s a gas giant. It’s the length of its seasons and years before of its long orbit around the sun. One “year” for Saturn is 29 “Earth years”. So when scientists first got a glimpse of the hexagon on Saturn, it was blue because it was Winter time at the North Pole. But then, by August 2009, spring had started to come to the planet, and that meant that there was a lot of shifting going on in the atmosphere. The rise of aerosols thanks to increased sunlight allowed the color of the hurricane to shift from blue to gold.

But let’s head back to the hexagonal shape on Jupiter for a bit, ok? You might be looking at this and wondering, “What would happen if this was on Earth?” Well, if we were to transplant it and then scale it down a bit so that it would fit on our planet (don’t forget that 1300 Earths could fit in Jupiter) in a non “total destruction” way, then you would still have a LARGE area of effect that would leave the entire area that it’s filling up in a rather lifeless state.

Granted, over time life COULD be made to resist it, but more than likely that’d be at a microbial level. You have to remember that these vortexes are basically massive hurricanes, and they have the winds to prove it. Ironically though, the winds of the vortexes aren’t as strong as the strongest hurricanes ever recorded on Earth. They come in at about 225 miles per hour, while the strongest winds ever recorded on Earth were over 300 miles per hour.

But don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Don’t forget, natural Earth hurricanes die out eventually. But what’s going on with Jupiter and Saturn is much longer lasting. And even they only lasted a week or a month, the effects on the area would be devastating to an extreme level.

Not to mention, what’s happening on Jupiter is a fixed event. Meaning that the hexagons (not unlike the one on Saturn) is rooted in the South Pole. But as we know here on Earth, our hurricanes like to move. So imagine if it started off in one area for a set period of time, and then started to move across the globe? Even if it went into massive ocean areas, it would cause all sorts of problems in the short and long terms. Including making that area it’s in a “no-fly zone” and ensuring that any ships in the area would have to go around the storm, which could cause all sorts of problems for traders and shippers.

We honestly won’t have to worry about this happening on our planet just yet, which is why many are so focused on trying to figure out why the hexagons on Saturn and Jupiter exist as a whole. And by that we mean, “why the hexagon shape?” In truth, we don’t know, we can guess how it forms via the Oxford experiment we showed you earlier, but as we also noted, you can have many different shapes depending on various factors.

So the fact that the ones on both Saturn and Jupiter BOTH have a hexagonal shape is quite curious and mysterious. And that’s likely to remain for a while.

However, if you look at the Earth, and you look closely enough to certain factors in nature, you’re going to see the hexagon pop up quite a bit. And we’re not teasing you here either. You’ll see it in animals via their constructs or even their body parts. If you look at the inside of a beehive, you’ll see hexagons everywhere.

And in terms of the Saturn hexagon, we could argue that its shape is a way of ensuring that it’s a solid entity and doesn’t break apart so easily. As a hexagon when built right is a very rigid structure.

The Enigmatic Nature of Jupiter

However, with the one on Jupiter…the explanation is a bit hard to come by. Because this isn’t a giant cloud of gasses like on Saturn that form a hexagonal shape. Rather, it’s a set of 7 vortexes that are forming together to make that shape. How does that happen?

More importantly, how are these shapes holding together? Yeah, didn’t think of that one, did you? They’re sticking together through thick and thin, but how is something like that possible? The only theory out there right now is that of the gravity of the planet. Some people are theorizing that there is an asymmetrical gravity field going on in this area that is linking all the vortexes together. But the problem with that theory is that nothing else on Jupiter seems to have this kind of atypical gravity applied to it. And while the vortexes are at the south pole, and thus are a focal point of certain things, wouldn’t that also mean that something should be going on at the North Pole? And yet, it’s not.

Another thing to talk about is the Great Red Spot. Why wouldn’t it be affected by this? We know that this spot is a storm, a massive one in fact. A storm so big that this “spot” could actually hold Earth a few times over depending on what time period you’re talking about. I say that because certain reports indicate that the storm itself may be “dying” based on its size and shape. Reports in the 21st century show that there is “flaking” going on, and bits of the storm are shooting out into the other parts of Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Now, as for how the storm works within the spot, and how long it’s been there…no one really knows. It’s been going on for centuries, that’s quite a big storm to last for hundreds of years. But we don’t know, or have many clues, as to how/why it started, why it’s lasting so long, or even how deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere it goes. It could be a surface level event, or, it could be something that touches the ground so to speak. We just don’t know.

So when you add the Great Red Spot and the hexagonal shape at the South Pole, you have two very big, very conflicting, and very deadly events going on here that honestly can’t be explained that well. And if these two things are there, it goes to reason that somewhere else on Jupiter there is something else that could be very weird or strange.

Only time will tell if we get to discover that as well.