this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025
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It is because this is how these things do be. QED.
That’s actually the prevailing theory. A hexagonal shape is the path of least resistance for the wind patterns on Saturn. It probably really is that simple.
If only we could see other natural hexagons somewhere
Unrelated though - that's a packing efficiency thing.
I don't think it's completely unrelated though. I don't claim to understand what's actually going but seems to me that whatever winds are whipping about there could create fronts that are sort of similar as pressure as what happens with honeycombs. In one it's just the cells themselves create the pressure whereas here it's the giant planetwide storms.
Idk.
As a an interplanetary stormologist. Or a geometrisist.
The movement (kinetic energy) is the driver with the atmospheric patterns. There's no movement in the honey comb.
I mean, they lay round cells, but because they layer them tightly, they get squeezed in, and form a hexagonal pattern. Possibly drying also affects it idk much about bee-engineering, apologies.
Classic application of the "it is what it is" lemma.