Saturn's hexagon change in season. These changes were observed by the Cassini spacecraft. One hypothesis, developed at Oxford University, is that the hexagon forms where there is a steep latitudinal gradient in the speed of the atmospheric winds in Saturn's atmosphere. Similar regular shapes were created in the laboratory when a circular tank of liquid was rotated at different speeds at its centre and periphery. The most common shape was six sided, but shapes with three to eight sides were also produced. The shapes form in an area of turbulent flow between the two different rotating fluid bodies with dissimilar speeds. A
Magic hexagon can be called a T-hexagon and it has many more properties than the hexagon of hexagons. As with the above, the rows of triangles run in three directions and there are 24 triangles in a T-hexagon of order 2. In general, a T-hexagon of order "n" has formula_10 triangles. The sum of all these numbers is given by: If we try to construct a magic T-hexagon of side "n", we have to choose "n" to be even, because there are rows so the sum in each row must be For this to be an integer, "n" has to be even.