weird hexagon at Saturn's north pole

[miriam_e]

How is this for odd? At the north pole of Saturn the clouds form a hexagonal structure big enough to fit almost 4 Earths inside. Nobody is sure how this kind of shape can be produced by clouds. At Saturn's south pole there is the normal circular storm pattern everyone would expect.

This hexagonal shape is not new -- it was first seen by the little Voyager space robot when it flew past 26 years ago, in the early 1980s, and it isn't superficial either, these cloud patterns extend down about 75 kilometers (47 miles). Although the clouds race around the edges of the hexagon, the hexagon itself doesn't appear to rotate... odder and odder.

This image is taken in infrared because it is currently winter at that pole, so it is enshrouded in night.

You can read more at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia09188.html

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

The internet has really helped to bring those jaunty little robotic space explorers to "life". It is difficult to remember how far from the center we stood back in the days before the internet. It really has changed a lot of the world, and helped many other things change the world even more.

I think of the "almost 4 Earths" thing like this: I remember the photos of our beautiful blue marble taken from space by astronauts and space robots, and I imagine us all living out our lives and some of us travelling for the best part of a day in high-speed jet aircraft halfway around that little globe... then I imagine a hole almost big enough to fit 4 of them in... and I think to myself... "Wow!"

[beyondfake-0.livejournal.com]

I think of it like... I imagine a globe. Then I cut it so that it lays flat... then I fit four of them together. 4 Africas, 4 South americas.... 4 Alantic oceans. It's AMAZING.

(And actually would make a pretty cool setting for a science fiction novel/comic/game.)

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

It just falls into that class of "really frickin' BIG" that most astronomic (is that a word?) phenomena do. It's a fuzzy concept that essentially boils down to "you have to be a long long way off to see it all".

I adore what the internet has done in connecting space exploration with buffs around the world. I remember in the '80s I'd be reading books about "the latest" in space exploration, which had actually taken place the decade before!
Ah, Voyager, Viking, Mariner et al. Fond memories. I can still smell the pages with the full colour glossy images of the boring-as-hell martian landscape :)