Saturn’s Hexagon

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/saturn-hexagon/

  Quote

The Cassini spacecraft has returned the best images yet of the strange hexagonal jet stream that flows around the northern pole of Saturn.

 

First discovered by the Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s, the hexagon remains a beautiful mystery to astronomers, and one they’ve been waiting for another shot to see for almost three decades.

 

“The longevity of the hexagon makes this something special, given that weather on Earth lasts on the order of weeks,” said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini project researcher at the California Institute of Technology, in a NASA release. “It’s a mystery on par with the strange weather conditions that give rise to the long-lived Great Red Spot of Jupiter.”

 

The hexagon circles Saturn at 77 degrees north and is wider than two Earths. Nearly everything about the weather pattern is baffling. First, it’s unclear what causes the hexagon. Second, it’s bizarre that the jet stream would make such sharp turns. Earth’s atmospheric movements rarely display such geometric rigor.

 

Fifty-five images were stitched together to create a three-frame animation of the jet stream on the move (see below). The sharp black triangle jutting out of the central black circle is an artifact of the image processing.

and here i thought neptune was always the most IDM planet...hmmm

bonus photos of saturn

WOOOOOAAAAHHHHH

*jaw drops*

  On 12/10/2009 at 8:17 AM, chaosmachine said:

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/and-saturns-hexagon-shall-be-called/

very very interesting...i like the name Omphalos

I thought people were talking about that hexagon for ever ago. Watch people actually finally talk about saturn's moon that looks like it's man made 10 year from now as if it was just noticed too.

  On 12/10/2009 at 8:27 AM, Glass Plate said:

I thought people were talking about that hexagon for ever ago. Watch people actually finally talk about saturn's moon that looks like it's man made 10 year from now as if it was just noticed too.

do you actually believe there is a 'man-made' moon orbiting saturn? who told you this

  On 12/10/2009 at 8:28 AM, chax said:

  On 12/10/2009 at 8:27 AM, Glass Plate said:

I thought people were talking about that hexagon for ever ago. Watch people actually finally talk about saturn's moon that looks like it's man made 10 year from now as if it was just noticed too.

 

do you actually believe there is a 'man-made' moon orbiting saturn? who told you this

No, but there is a moon that orbits Saturn, that has very peculiar land marks including hexagonal craters, a massive wall on equator and a huge tower-like landform.

plz forward to Boc for next album cover

jazz

  On 12/10/2009 at 8:27 AM, Glass Plate said:

I thought people were talking about that hexagon for ever ago. Watch people actually finally talk about saturn's moon that looks like it's man made 10 year from now as if it was just noticed too.

they're talking about the new pictures of this thing bud. the ones they've been waiting nearly 3 decades to see.

boc?

  On 12/10/2009 at 8:56 AM, chax said:

seems like a good enough reason to blow up the moon.

Most definitely on the m-i-c.

looks like a bumhole

Nice. Cassini is awesome.. it took a photo of an eclipse of Saturn which is one of the greatest ever.. imo. (Earth is the white dot slightly up and left of the planet).

higher resolution is better

you can see the raw Cassini images as they're processed at http://ciclops.org.. unbelievable stuff.

that would be http://ciclops.org

and that's why space exploration is a good use of money!

Cassini is fucking awesome.

that dodgy moon with the equatorial ridge (also one bright face, one fark face - caused by captured rotation and dust and shit) is Iapetus.

  On 12/10/2009 at 3:36 PM, ezkerraldean said:

and that's why space exploration is a good use of money!

 

 

Cassini is fucking awesome.

 

that dodgy moon with the equatorial ridge (also one bright face, one fark face - caused by captured rotation and dust and shit) is Iapetus.

  On 12/10/2009 at 3:36 PM, ezkerraldean said:

and that's why space exploration is a good use of money!

 

 

 

haha.. agreed!

It's sad that BoC have to stare at their home planet and not be able to return... yet.

Iapetus is the Death Star

  On 12/10/2009 at 4:00 PM, kokoon said:

  On 12/10/2009 at 3:36 PM, ezkerraldean said:

and that's why space exploration is a good use of money!

 

 

Cassini is fucking awesome.

 

that dodgy moon with the equatorial ridge (also one bright face, one fark face - caused by captured rotation and dust and shit) is Iapetus.

that's no moon!

but it is. i mean, it's a natural satellite.