NASA, European Space Agency, Italian Space Agency

Saturn's Spinning Hexagon Storm

By Joshua S. Hill

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

It is the second largest planet of our solar system, and named for the Roman god Saturnus (or the Greek mythological equivalent, Kronos). Saturn is the last of the seven planets of classical antiquity. A gas giant in the same league as Jupiter, Saturn has been a favorite of NASA's for a long time, as evidenced by flybys from both Voyager crafts, and the extended Cassini-Huygens mission.

A joint effort between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, the Cassini-Huygens mission is managed from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, on behalf of NASA.

In 1988, the Voyager 2 spacecraft relayed back to NASA map-projected images defining an anomaly at Saturn's northern pole. A persistent hexagonal wave pattern around the north polar vortex -- regularly the warmest spot on the planet's surface, reaching temperatures well in to the scorching negative 122 degrees Celsiuses.

A recent time lapse video provides the layman a view at this phenomenon, which clearly shows the hexagonal shape surrounding the eye of the storm. This is despite speeds anywhere up to 100 miles a second.

This storm pattern is hidden well beneath the normally ubiquitous ammonia haze, up to some 75 kilometers below. Taken over a 1 hour period on Nov. 10, 2006, from an average distance of 1.03 million kilometers, the video uses visual infrared mapping to see beneath Saturn's clouds.

All of this just to say, whenever someone is willing to put their hand up and say they've got it all figured out, your god, deity or science flux is willing and ready to throw a curveball straight back at you.