Six-Sided Mystery
Two views of the strange hexagonal pattern in the clouds that surround Saturn's north pole, as seen in infrared light that reveals features about 75 kilometers below the cloud tops. This shape was discovered during the Voyager mission in the 1980s, which means this is an unusually long-lasting phenomenon. One of the mission scientists said, "This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides. We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is." Learn more, and see a movie of clouds tracing the shape of the hexagon as they revolve in Saturn’s north polar vortex.
March 27, 2007
Riding with Robots: