Why the Hexagon?

You may have noticed that we’ve used hexagons across this site – for the badges themselves, your profile photo, and even in the Hall of Fame. This is not a coincidence.

So, why the hexagon?

Here’s just a small number of reasons:

It is one of the strongest geometric shapes in nature.
It appears frequently in nature – in honeycomb, snowflakes, beanstalks, and even on the cloud formations on Saturn’s north pole!
It’s the shape used for the mirrors on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The JWST is the world’s next great observatory and the successor to Hubble. It’s due to be launched in 2020 and has the potential to look back in time to the formation of the very first stars.

Credit: Northrop Grumman

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Explore Further

Find out more about the James Webb Telescope on NASA’s website.

Credits

Image credit: Northrop Grumman

Deep Field is a celebration of STEAM education (science, technology, engineering, art and design, and math).

We’ve created some fun challenges inspired by STEAM so you can learn more about anything from Fibonacci to Flying Machines, Music to Math or Singing to Spiral Galaxies. Can you master the challenges and collect all the badges?

Keep a look out for badges across the site or tap one of the hexagons to get started.