Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Saturn's Hexagon and Rings

NASA ^ | February 20, 2013 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System. If Saturn's South Pole wasn't strange enough with its rotating vortex, Saturn's North Pole might be considered even stranger. The bizarre cloud pattern is shown above in great detail by a recent image taken by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. This and similar images show the stability of the hexagon even 20+ years after Voyager. Movies of Saturn's North Pole show the cloud structure maintaining its hexagonal structure while rotating. Unlike individual clouds appearing like a hexagon on Earth, the Saturn cloud pattern appears to have six well defined sides of nearly equal length. Four Earths could fit inside the hexagon. Imaged from the side, the dark shadow of the Jovian planet [Jupiter was Jove, nowadays any of the four gas giants is considered Jovian, just to be confusing] is seen eclipsing part of its grand system of rings, partly visible on the upper right.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute]

[SunkenCiv]

Additional Comments

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[bigheadfred]

Some colossal forces at work there.

[wxgesr]

kinda goes against my thoughts on fluid dynamics...

[shibumi]

The Platonic Solids embedded in nature.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Does it do that on Uranus ?

[SunkenCiv]

There’s one in every crowd. ;’)

[Salamander]

It’s a cosmic stop sign.