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Saturn has hexagonal polar vortex shown by Cassini images

Posted Mar 29, 2007 at 03:09AM by Dia A. Listed in: Astrophysics, Celestial Bodies, Spacecraft, Space Missions Tags: NASA, Saturn, hurricane, Cassini
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Saturn's hexagonal polar vortex - Image 1

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been studying the planet Saturn and its moons for some time now, bringing strange and stranger news to the waiting scientists back on earth.

Only recently they found another weird fact from the sixth rock from the sun: Saturn's polar vortex, the winds that blow outward from its polar region, is hexagon-shaped rather than circular like the polar vortex we have here on earth.


The strange vortex features a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides. Scientists are baffled. They've never seen anything like it on any other planet. And to think that Saturn is a planet whose thick atmosphere is dominated by circularly-shaped waves and connective cells; it's the last place to ever expect such a six-sided geometric figure.

Two decades ago, this same feature on Saturn's north pole was photographed by NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts. The fact that this hexagon appeared again in the Cassini images means that it's a long-lived feature. After 15 years - the length of a long polar night in Saturn - the image is made visible again. It's been said that four earths could fit inside this hexagon, measuring 15,000 miles across.

Another weird thing about Saturn: while it has a hexagon-shaped polar vortex on its north pole, the southern polar vortex looks a lot different. It appears to be a hurricane with a giant eye. Such weird facts about the Solar System's second largest planet only serve to whet our scientists' appetites to learn more about it.

They believe that once they understand the nature of the "bizarre hexagon", the may learn of the true rotation rate of the deep atmosphere and perhaps the interior of the planet.

[Via Physorg] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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4 Comments


Sort by:
   by Chaos (Unregistered) - 2007-03-29
 » strange
w00t, first post., But seriously, that is quite strange if one considers that the most perfect structual shape that any object would want to take is a sphere or a circle, or as close to it as possible (seeing as all celestial objects are spherical, as are water droplets if they didnt have the tail due to gravity, right down to atoms being spherical). Strange that a an object with even an inkling to corners and straight lines would even form.


   Re: Advertising -


   Re: . (Unregistered) - 2007-03-29
 » .
ever seen fire in zero gravity?
   by llll (Unregistered) - 2007-03-29
 » yo momma
who ever hates earth go suck one motha*****a


   Re: . (Unregistered) - 2007-04-01
 » .
nobody ever said anything about earth..??


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