Hidey ho!
Although “South Park” isn’t officially broadcast on Jupiter, it looks like one of the show’s characters has found a home there.
An enhanced picture of Jupiter taken by the Juno spacecraft in September shows a large brown spot that looks amazingly like Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo, a talking and singing lump of dookie that wears a Santa hat.
Naturally, NASA engineer Kevin M. Gill felt compelled to share the crappy photo on Twitter:
Fans of the show might note that the character’s presence on the planet is appropriate since he was run out of South Park this past season for sending offensive tweets, which, like Roseanne Barr, he blamed on the insomnia drug Ambien.
CNET.com notes another stinky connection: Jupiter is one of the solar system’s gas giants.
“Mr. Hankey” is a very unofficial name for the spot, which is actually something known as a “brown barge,” according to a NASA press release Gill sent to HuffPost. This feature is a type of “cyclonic region that usually lie[s] within Jupiter’s dark North Equatorial Belt, although they are sometimes found in the similarly dark South Equatorial Belt as well.”
HuffPost has reached to “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who did not immediately respond.
This story has been updated with information from a NASA press release.