Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Saturn's North Polar Hexagon


Earth's jet stream is a subject of intense interest and concern thanks to its effects on our weather. Saturn's polar jet stream, seen here, causes no such worries for Earthlings, so we can simply marvel at its graceful form.

This atmospheric feature was first observed by Voyager and was dubbed 'the hexagon'. To see more of this feature, see PIA10486 and PIA11682.

This view looks toward the north pole of Saturn from about 53 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 23, 2013 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 590,000 miles (949,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 52 degrees. Image scale is 35 miles (57 kilometers) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

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