[Blueskytech]

While I am confident there is a rational scientific explanation for the hexagon of Saturn, it is undoubtedly an incredible synchronicity that the storm exists. Saturn being the sixth planet from the sun it has historically been associated with the hexagon within occult symbolism since well before humans could have verified such a storm exists. Truly a remarkable find and fact of our solar system.

[thaumasiotes]

> Saturn being the sixth planet from the sun it has historically been associated with the hexagon within occult symbolism since well before humans could have verified such a storm exists.

By who? There can't be a traditional association for the obvious reason that, until fairly recently, there were only 5 planets and there was no way to know which of them were how far from the Sun.

[adrian_b]

In Antiquity the planets were believed to move around the Earth, not the Sun, so they estimated the distances from the planets to the Earth.

While there was no way to estimate a numeric distance, they have correctly estimated which planets are closer and which are more distant, based on their angular speed on the sky.

So it was always correctly believed that Saturn is the farthest from the Earth, because it has the slowest angular speed, followed by Jupiter, then by Mars.

It was believed that there are 7 special celestial bodies, adding the Sun and the Moon.

However I am not aware of any association between Saturn and the number 6.

Saturn and Jupiter became associated with black lead (i.e. lead) and white lead (i.e. tin), because Saturn is less bright and it moves slower on the sky than Jupiter, like the lead is less bright and also heavier than the tin.

[mannykannot]

That's a good point, especially as the Earth was regarded as the center of the universe. Ptolemy apparently had to put Mercury and Venus inside of the Sun's orbit [1] (note that if you replace 'inside of the Sun's orbit' with 'between the Earth and the Sun', you get a proposition that holds then and now! Ptolemy had to deal with the fact that Mercury and Venus do not stray far from the Sun.)

Nevertheless, in that model, Saturn ends up as the outermost heavenly body, other than the stars, presumably because it has the longest period. Even so, it does not count as the sixth unless you include either the Sun or Moon, but not both.

[1]http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/more_stuff/Ap...

[sdenton4]

Wikipedia puts discovery of the first six planets under 'prehistoric.'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_discovery_of_Sol...

[adrian_b]

In that Wikipedia article, "prehistorically" is improperly used.

"Prehistoric" means before the appearance of written records, which means before the 3rd millenium BC (when there are many Egyptian and Sumerian/Akkadian written records).

There is no evidence that the planets (i.e. excluding the Sun, Earth and Moon) were known prehistorically.

The evidence is actually that 4 planets, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, have been discovered, as correctly written in the Wikipedia article, only in the 2nd millennium BC, in Babylonia. That is a historical time not prehistorical.

The only planet known in prehistory was Venus, because it is much brighter than any star, so its movement on the sky is obvious, but it was known as 2 distinct stars, the Morning Star and the Evening Star.

Only very late it became understood that there is actually a unique celestial body that appears in 2 forms.

This discovery was made in Sumer, probably in the 3rd millenium BC, or maybe as early as the 4th millenium BC. (This Sumerian discovery is reflected in the legend of Inanna, who descends in the underworld, then she returns to the heavens, like the Evening Star disappears and then returns as the Morning Star).

This knowledge has propagated to other places only very slowly.

For example Homer mentions some stars and constellations and also both the Morning Star and the Evening Star, but there is not the slightest hint that he or the other Greeks of the 8th century BC might have known that those 2 "stars" are in fact the same body.

[sdenton4]

Yeah, the use of 'prehistory' seems not great in this context; there's a fundamental problem of how we would know which bodies were known prior to the existence of a writing system.

But there are a number of things that make these very discoverable: They are visible with the naked eye, all lie in the ecliptic plane, and behave a bit strangely if you watch them over time. Mars is a bit red, and absolutely stands out... And of course Venus can't be ignored. Once you've noticed Venus and Mars, finding the others is a matter of looking a bit harder.

Using stars for navigation or for measuring the passage of time involves observing them consistently, which leads one to notice 'odd' things. So I wouldn't at all be surprised if the planets were known in, say, prehistoric Polynesian cultures... The appearance of mathematical astronomy in Babylonia tells us that the movement of celestial bodies is approximately the first scientific knowledge a civilization will bother to write down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_astronomy#Old_Babyl...

[thaumasiotes]

> The appearance of mathematical astronomy in Babylonia tells us that the movement of celestial bodies is approximately the first scientific knowledge a civilization will bother to write down.

In fact, we know (from ruins) that the Chinese were practicing astronomy at a time well before our first written records of them.

It is a certainty that the planets were known to all prehistoric cultures; I don't know what adrian_b is thinking.

[adrian_b]

There exists no evidence whatsoever that any prehistoric culture was aware about the existence of planets.

Of course they would have noticed Jupiter and Mars when they are brighter than the stars, as extra stars in known constellations, but there is no evidence that anyone realized that the extra bright star seen once in a certain constellation is the same with the extra bright star seen next year in another constellation.

Because it was not yet understood that the planet sightings are the same bodies that just move on the sky, they were thought as stars that appear or disappear randomly.

Like I have said, not even Venus, the brightest body on the sky after the Sun and Moon, was recognized as a single star, but it was believed to be 2 different stars until 6000 years ago in Sumer and until as late as 2600 years ago in Europe.

Noticing a bright star on the sky is not the same with knowing its nature.

The next 4 planets after Venus have been discovered in Babylonia because they began to make written continuous records with the positions of the stars during many years.

Only then, after comparing the written records accumulated after many years, it was realized that the planets are not stars that appear and disappear randomly, but they move in continuous trajectories on the sky, with definite speeds and if you know their position at some time you can predict their future position at another time, because they never stray from their path.

So only after the Babylonian discoveries it became understood that the stars are divided in fixed stars, wandering stars a.k.a. planets, which have predictable trajectories, and the comets, which are the only stars that appear and disappear randomly.

[macksd]

I thought we weren't able to chart their orbits and thus know their orderings until the last few centuries. I'm sure we recognized them as being brighter than stars, visible as more than points of light, with non-sidereal motion, and we gave them names. But I don't think we knew Saturn was 6th "prehistorically".

[sdenton4]

Here's some more fun reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos

"... an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe, with the Earth revolving around the Sun once a year and rotating about its axis once a day. He was influenced by the concept presented by Philolaus of Croton (c. 470 – 385 BC) of a fire at the center of the universe, but Aristarchus identified the "central fire" with the Sun and he put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun.[2]"

The ancients were smarter than we think, usually.

[irrational]

Wouldn’t they be able to know/guess based on the fact that it took longer to orbit the sun than Jupiter?

[thaumasiotes]

> Wikipedia puts discovery of the first six planets under 'prehistoric.'

Wikipedia is counting the Earth as a planet.

[ryantgtg]

You are being too rational. There is, of course, an explanation for why people knew of the hexagon in ancient times:

> Some theorists believe in the very distant past the planets were arranged much differently. This would have been back in the Golden Age, when shit was good and Saturn wasn’t pissed off from hearing that prophecy yet. Supposedly this was when Atlantis thrived and Saturn hung stationary in the sky directly overhead. This theory comes from the people over at the Thunderbolts Project, who have also proposed many other radical new ideas such as the universe being electric and Saturn being a second sun. The theory that we live in a binary star system has correlations with the Nazi’s belief in a Black Sun.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/ce7vue/the_satu...

https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/about/syn/

[ryantgtg]

I see now that your comment was mostly about the order of the planets. Not about how people hundreds of years ago knew there was a hexagon on the planet.

[elihu]

As weird as the Saturn hexagon is, I think the oddly symmetrical polar storms of Jupiter have it beat in terms of "gawp factor".

Also the ridge on Iapetus is worth an honorable mention if we're talking about things that don't look like they belong in nature.

What a strange place this solar system is.

[jkubicek]

Iapetus Ridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_ridge_on_Iapetus

Polar Storms of Jupiter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Jupiter#Circumpo...

[pvaldes]

Hum, I just realized that those polar storms would turn easily into the hexagon if they just lose power (or would be covered by another layer of material over it). Both are probably the same phenomenon. More strong in Jupiter, less in Saturn. Tornados would explain also why is a tall shape

The hexagon should gyrate slower (with less energy) than the jupiter storms. Neptune should have also the same process but is colder I'm not wrong, so maybe it has less energy and is not so easily visible.

[pvaldes]

Yep, here is the Neptune hexagon... same pattern, same process

https://slate.com/technology/2014/05/neptune-voyager-images-...

[bolasanibk]

More weirdness in our Solar System

Mimas - A moon of Saturn which from certain angles looks like a death star. [1]

Hyperion - Another moon of Saturn which looks like a sponge. [2]

Phobos - A moon of Mars with a huge crater on one end.[3]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_%28moon%29 [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(moon) [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)

[eth0up]

And a bit more...

Phobos monolith

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_monolith

Good ol Buzz, giving mention to the subject

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bDIXvpjnRws

Also, Mars monolith https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_monolith

Europa is another intriguing spaceball, with the (vague if you must) possibility of a life-supporting ocean.

Edit: add mars monolith

[irrational]

Also, the co-orbital moons Of Saturn, Janus and Epimetheus.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_(moon)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-orbital_moon

[lemurian]

Another fun scenario to consider: if you could hop in a time machine and show these pictures to your favorite historical figure with occult interests (Pythagoras, Plato, Newton, John Dee), they wouldn't be surprised at all. "Oh yeah, we've known about that one FOREVER!"

[night862]

I doubt they knew about the hexagonal storms, i dont have any idea if any 2000 y/o figures at all had any idea about planets, but maybe this could be a humorous rick and morty plot twist.

To change the subject almost completely to "weird things Plato argued", Plato recounted an interesting myth about the origin of sexes in the Symposium, that essentially humans were once male and female, with 4 arms and 4 legs and 2 faces, basically two people fused back-to-back.

If you examine human phylogeny, you will see that this isn't exactly true, but it's kinda close. Female and Male sex organs are derived from one structure in fetal development, the "gonad", which resolves into one or the other organ later during development. The full structure of male and female sex organs are actually rather visually similar (if you remove them and isolate the organ from the body, of course).

But the proto-humans or duplex-humans, not sure what its called, were too fast/strong/versatile because of these extra limbs and extra brain, Plato sort of inserting here the notion that maybe because they had 4 arms they were sort of 2x as strong/fast, these critters began scaling mount Olympus with the intention of challenging the gods, and it made Zeus a little nervous, or really i guess recognize that there would have to be a solution, even though he did not want to destroy the humans, he couldn't allow this challenge to continue.

Resultantly, Zeus decided to split the humans in two This would weaken the humans but allow them to continue most of their mortal endeavors. As a side effect, instead of vying for the power of the Olympians, they would be too rapt with lust, love, procreation to challenge the gods any longer.

Kind of cute I guess, that since they were separated in such a fashion, humans would forever yearn for wholeness that can come only from reunion with their actual other half :P

Thanks Zeus. You've really ruined a lot of my weekends.

[risk000]

This is retold in musical form in quite a lovely way by Hedwig and the Angry Inch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJUNH-Fs4EA

[night862]

I’ve never seen that before, ill have to watch the whole movie. Thanks, that’s stellar.

[pvaldes]

> the proto-humans... would be to rapt with lust...

The entire history is basically an excuse for the old "hey, we should sleep together and have fun" (shrug). Maybe it worked fine for Plato.

[night862]

Heh, maybe not-as far as I am aware he didn't have a wife or any children that we know about.

but it seems like he thought about it a lot :)

[pvaldes]

Plato wrote a lot about love relationships between men. Is a typical grooming tale that he was teaching to his alumni. Is easy to follow the dots here.

[dash2]

Actually in the Symposium it is Aristophanes who tells this story, as a deliberately funny and absurd way of explaining how crazy love is. It features both heterosexual and homosexual couples (these are just halves of four-legged creatures that were male/female or male/male or female/female respectively). The real argument of the Symposium is that Alcibiades' love for Socrates leads him towards the true good, which is philosophy.

[pfortuny]

FTR: planet=wanderer in Greek. They were called “wandering stars” by the Romans.

Because they were the celestial bodies which did not move according to the general pattern.

[jacobolus]

As mentioned already, ancient peoples didn’t know that Earth is 3rd planet from the sun and Saturn is 6th.

But Saturn also has a ~30 earth-year long year, which means it goes about 1/12 of the way around its orbit each Earth year, relevant to hexagons which have symmetry axes at 12ths of a turn. (No idea if this is the source of any association between Saturn and hexagons.)

[jacobolus]

Er, wait a sec, that doesn’t make any sense. Chalk it up to tiredness.

With a ~30 Earth-year long year, Saturn of course goes about 1/30 of the way around its orbit each Earth year; this would just as closely relate it to a pentagon as a hexagon. It’s Jupiter with a ~12 Earth-year long year that would go about 1/12 of the way around its orbit each Earth year.

Saturn and Jupiter together have orbits that return to about the same state every ~60 years.

[ethbr0]

I'd say the locals went a bit overboard with their tourism billboard, but I suppose 27,600 km across isn't too big relative to the distance it might be seen at.

[anothernewdude]

It's what a wave looks like wrapped around a pole.

[eternalban]

Note that the idea of "6th planet" implies the ancients had placed the Earth in the 3rd rock position, which is news. It has nothing to do with a positional order.

Saturn is the alchemical Lead, with symbol: .

But speaking of "syncronicity", consulting my copy of C. G. Jung's Alchemical Studies, on pages 226-8 he writes:

"But the most important of all for an interpretation of Mercurius is his relation to Saturn. Mercurius senex is identical with Saturn, and to the earlier alchemists especially, it is not quicksilver, but the lead associated with Saturn, which usually represents the prima materia. In the Arabic text of the Turba quicksilver is identical with the 'waters of moon and Saturn'. In the 'Dicta Belini', Saturn says: 'My spirit is the water that loosens rigid limbs of my brothers'. This refers to the 'eternal water' which is just what Mercurius is. [...] Like Mercurius, Saturn is hermaphroditic. Saturn is 'an old man on a mountain, in him the natures are bound with their complement [i.e. the four elements], and all this is in Saturn'. [...] the Gnostic teaching [is] that Kronos (Saturn) is a 'power of the colour of water' which destroys everything, since 'water is destruction'.

"Like the planetary spirit of Mercurius, the spirit of Saturn is 'very suited to this work'. One of the manifestations of Mercurius in the alchemical process of tranformation is the lion, now green and now red. Khunrath calls this transformation "luring the lion out of Saturn's mountain cave'. From ancient times the lion was associated with Saturn. Khunrath calls him the 'lion of the Catholic tribe', paraphrasing the 'lion of the tribe of Judah' -- an allegory of Christ. He calls Saturn 'the lion green and red'. In Gnosticism Saturn is the highest archon, the lion-headed Ialdabaoth, meaning 'Child of Chaos'. But in alchemy the child of chaos is Mercurius.

"The relation to and identity with Saturn is important because Saturn is not only a maleficus but actually the dwelling place of the devil himself. Even as the highest archon and demiurge his Gnostic reputation was not the best. According to one Catholistic source, Beelzebub was associated with him [i.e. Mercurius]. Mylius says that if Mercurius were to be purified, then Lucifer would fall from heaven. [...] Khunrath says: 'Good with the good, Evil the the evil.'"

Based on that, we can see that the occult Hexagram -- closely related to the 11th ("Peace") and 12th ("Stagnation") Hexagrams of the I-Ching -- is a reference to the intertwined trinities of Good (white triangle) and Evil (black triangle), which depending on the orientation (per the I-Ching) denote either positive or negative spiritual transformations.

[reality_inspctr]

Also the hexagon and circle being so similar to carbon. Like the team logo for consciousness.