Hatrack River Forum: The Eye of God?

This is topic The Eye of God? in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :

NASA has new photos of a 5,000 mile diameter hurricane at Saturn's South Pole.

The edge of the eye of the storm really looks like a gargantuan eye! It's a distinct oval, not circular, that rotates and is 1,000 to 1,500 miles across (my estimate).

Spooky! [Eek!]

Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :

Explain THAT, science!

Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

Easy, the Eye of Sauron has turned from Earth and is seeking worlds of conquest elsewhere. [Razz]

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :

I know there's a Uranus joke to be made here but I graduated Junior High a long time ago.

Well, I got out of Jr High anyway. Some claim my use of the word graduate is unwarranted, but thats a story for another day.

Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

quote:
and is 1,000 to 1,500 miles across (my estimate).

From NASA JPL's website:

quote:
It is approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across, or two thirds the diameter of Earth.

Did you forget to adjust for inflation?

Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :

Karl, my 1,000 to 1,500 miles figure is just for the eye.
Did you forget to read my 3 sentence post? [Razz]

Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

[Blushing]

Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :

Someone tell those folks on Saturn that this is what happens as a result of global warming!

Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :

There are no folks on Saturn. . .

. . . anymore.

Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :

DUN! Dun. dun..

Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :

Too funny! [Wink]

Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :

lol.. I graduated from Jr. High... we had a whole ceremony for it and everything ;-)

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

quote:
I graduated Junior High a long time ago.

Exactly how does one "graduate" junior high? With a tape measure?

Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :

Saturn, Thou hypocrite, cast out first the continent out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mountain that is in thy brother's eye.

Morbo's Second Epistle to JPL

Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :

And here I thought this was the Eye of God. To be honest, I'm not sure what this is an exact picture of, but it was forwarded to me by a friend. It looks pretty neat though. [Big Grin]

EDIT: I dug through my e-mail to find out the context. Apparently this was a picture taken by the Hubble and was designated "the Eye of God." Apparently it's some sort of spacial event that takes place every 3000 years. I don't know how accurate all of that is (since it came from a forwarded e-mail), but it's still a very neat picture.

Posted by Hank (Member # 8916) on :

For some reason I read the title of this as "Eve of God". Now I'm all disappointed.

Apparently, though, god has nice eyes.

Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :

Believe it or not, the North Pole of Saturn looks even weirder in images from last month than the South Pole's Eye: a 15,000 mile diameter hexagon. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-034

quote:
"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

The hexagon is similar to Earth's polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 25,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it.

Trippy!

pfresh, I liked your photo. I researched it last year and I seem to remember it's a nebula supernova remnant, an expanding cloud after a star explodes. Not sure where the 3000 years comes in. Supernova are very rare, could be one that close only occurs once every 3000 years, or it could have happened 3000 years ago.

Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :

Oh, hexagonal rotation. Fun! Thanks for sharing, Morbo.