Saturn south pole decagon: Howard's claim checked

Key Takeaways

The decagon	NASA and the European Space Agency said on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, that Hubble found a giant, evolving 10-sided wave around Saturn's south pole, the first large regular-sided jet pattern seen in that hemisphere.
Howard's account	On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, Terrence Howard told 363 Empire that he, Chris Ely, and David Johnson rebuilt Saturn in a simulator without gravity, dark matter, or dark energy, including the north-pole hexagon.
Not a mirror	The authors say the southern wave differs from the decades-old northern hexagon. Cassini saw no lasting southern polygon from 2004 to 2017. Hubble traces this one to 2023, and it is still changing.
The percentages	Howard said models understand only 4 percent of the universe. A 2013 Planck release put normal matter at 4.9 percent and dark matter at 26.8 percent. NASA's page uses about 5, 27, and 68 percent.

On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, actor Terrence Howard told the YouTube channel 363 Empire that a simulation without gravity had rebuilt Saturn, and that the Saturn south pole decagon fits that picture. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) had reported the wave on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. The paper they cite does not use his model.

The Saturn south pole decagon on Hubble

NASA said on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, that Hubble had found a giant, evolving, 10-sided wave around Saturn's south pole. NASA's account calls it the first large, regular-sided jet pattern in the southern hemisphere. ESA's release used similar wording that day. Science News said the team reported the wave in Science Advances.

The host of 363 Empire read that description at 4:40, with Howard, Billy Carson, and Chris Ely, whom the host called Howard's chief technology officer. YouTube's caption turned "regular-sided" into "regular sighted." NASA said lead author Agustín Sánchez-Lavega and amateurs Trevor Barry and Jean-Paul Oger noticed a wavy band in 2024. Hubble then showed it back to 2023.

The authors' congress abstract, posted Thursday, July 2, 2026, places the wave near 58 to 63 degrees south. It drifts east at 2.5 meters per second relative to Saturn's System III radio rotation. The jet at 60.5 degrees south peaks at 116 meters per second. The corners wobble over about 32 days, by 4.6 to 8.4 degrees. The abstract calls it a possible Rossby wave, a large bend trapped by the jet's curve.

What Howard said the simulator did

At 2:53 Howard said, "Chris Ely, myself, and David Johnson, we had just put together a simulation," a "live physics simulation with no animation." He said, "we were able to rebuild Saturn in a simulator without gravity, without dark matter, without dark energy, proving all of their models wrong."

At 5:11 he said they were able to "rebuild the hexagon that Saturn has at the very top" of the north pole, and that "we were unaware of the the decagon at the bottom." At 6:34 he said, "you can't have order on one side of the mirror and have disorder on the other side because the poles are mirror reflections of each other." At 8:12 he called it "proof that everything has been formed as a result of external pressures."

Ely said at 7:17, "there was no gravity in the model. It was just the resistance of the opposing vortices pointing at each other." At 1:32:14 he said they published "working with the university in Germany" in "a SAA journal of aeronautics and aerospace." Searches of arXiv and Crossref found no paper by Terrence Howard on Saturn or aeronautics. That publication could not be confirmed.

Where the mirror claim parts from the data

NASA quoted Amy Simon, who leads Hubble's Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The northern hexagon has been there every time we've looked for more than 40 years," she said. "This feature is different — it appears to be strengthening."

Sánchez-Lavega told NASA the team has looked for a southern match since 1990, because the north-south jets are symmetric. Cassini, from 2004 to 2017, "showed no inkling of a long-lived formation." Science News quoted him another way: "This discovery suggests that the hexagon [at the north pole] is not as extraordinary as previously thought." That report said researchers "can't properly explain the feature," though a nearby storm may have disturbed the jet. Simon told Science News the south changes more than the north.

Symmetry explains the search. It does not make the poles copies. Neither report describes a model with gravity removed. Simon said the open problem is why the wave appeared now.

The 4 percent claim, and a death date

Howard said at 3:06 that "their entire model said that you only have 4% of the universe that's actually visible, that actually they understand the other 96% of it, you know, being dark matter and dark energy." At 1:03:00 a participant said "99% of the known universe cannot be accounted for," called that dark matter, and said "99% of the atoms in our body is empty space." At 1:03:34 someone addressing Howard offered "24% dark matter and like 70 something% dark energy."

ESA's Planck page, from Thursday, March 21, 2013, puts normal matter at 4.9 percent of the mass-energy density and dark matter at 26.8 percent, detected by its gravity. NASA's dark matter page, last updated Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, says about 5 percent ordinary matter, about 27 percent dark matter, and about 68 percent dark energy. Howard's 4 percent is lower than the 2013 figure of 4.9. The 99 percent figure matches neither page. Empty space inside atoms is a different claim from the cosmic mix.

The host said at 9:49 that David Wilcock had died "about maybe six months" earlier, "in May," and that "they called it a suicide." The Denver Post reported on Thursday, April 23, 2026, that his family said he killed himself on Monday, April 20, in Nederland, Colorado, Their statement, distributed by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, said there was no foul play. The suicide account matches that statement. The May date does not.

NASA, ESA, and Science News do not mention Howard, Ely, or Carson. The authors still want more Hubble and James Webb time before they can say how long the wave will last.