APOD: 2023 June 18 Б Saturns Northern Hexagon
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.
Acquiring its first sunlit views of far northern
Saturn in late 2012, the
Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera recorded this
stunning,
false-color image of the ringed planet's north pole.
The composite of near-infrared image data
results in red hues for low clouds and green for high ones, giving the
Saturnian cloudscape a vivid appearance.
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.
Beyond the cloud tops at the upper right, arcs of the planet's
eye-catching
rings are tinted bright blue.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
