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February 21, 2013

Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn?

stahex.jpg

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. The bizarre cloud pattern is shown 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 is seen eclipsing part of its grand system of rings, partly visible on the upper right. -- Astronomy Picture of the Day

Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 21, 2013 11:56 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

It's a signal from my home planet that "my kind" is finally on the way to rescue me and take me home.

Trouble is: they took so damned long that I've gotten fond of this place in the meanwhile, and may not want to go back.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at February 21, 2013 12:57 PM

Jovian? I don't theenk so.

Posted by: John Lien at February 21, 2013 1:36 PM

You're right, Jupiter is way to far away to cast an umbra on Saturn and sunlight is quite weak at that distance.

Perhaps one of the moons might be a culprit.

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck at February 21, 2013 3:32 PM

Nah, check out this animated picture of rotating high/low pressure cells around the Terran south pole. Saturn is like this, only 6 instead of four on Earth, and because Saturn's "atmosphere" is stratified by chemical composition, and stable because it so cold, that the different wind streams become visible.

On the earth picture, imagine the jet streams weaving north and south between the high/low cells, and the polar vortex boundaries, all becoming visible, and it would start to look like Saturn. Look like, but different.

No Tau Cetian or other wierdness required. Just an instance of ordinary gas physics. Just the grandeur of Nature, an eternity of forms strange and wonderful, order and symmetry sometimes arising for a while from chaos.

Posted by: John A. Fleming at February 21, 2013 3:53 PM

The shadow is obviously of Saturn. The intern who wrote for the website is from Mars.

Posted by: Anonymous at February 21, 2013 3:54 PM

Gloooooooooobal waaaaaaarming!

Posted by: Manbearpig at February 21, 2013 4:03 PM

Lots of interesting angularity (including hexagonal craters) on Saturn's moon Iapetus.

Check out enterprisemission.com/moon1.htm , et al.

Posted by: goy at February 21, 2013 4:43 PM

re: "Jovian? I don't theenk so." Don Rodrigo at February 21, 2013 12:57 PM

Jovian
adj
1.redacted
2.redacted
3. (Astronomy) of or relating to the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune the Jovian planets
[from Old Latin Jovis Jupiter]

Dan Kurt

Posted by: Dan Kurt at February 21, 2013 5:33 PM

re: "Jovian? I don't theenk so." Don Rodrigo at February 21, 2013 12:57 PM

Jovian
adj
1.redacted
2.redacted
3. (Astronomy) of or relating to the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune the Jovian planets
[from Old Latin Jovis Jupiter]

Dan Kurt

Posted by: Dan Kurt at February 21, 2013 5:33 PM

Thanks Dan. Now I know.

Posted by: John Lien at February 21, 2013 6:04 PM

That's just the nut that keeps Saturn attached to its axis.

Posted by: B Lewis at February 21, 2013 6:15 PM

So, B., you're saying that we've used Vise-Grips on ours too many times and rounded off the corners. I can buy that.

We probably have more rednecks than Saturn.

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