Incredible Raw Image of Saturn’s Swirling North Pole (Saturn's Enigmatic Swirling Hexagon)

Universe Today ^ | November 28, 2012 | Jason Major

[lbryce]

Are you ready for this?

I know… WOW.

This swirling maelstrom of clouds is what was seen over Saturn’s north pole earlier today, November 27, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This is a raw image, acquired in polarized light, from a distance of 238,045 miles (383,097 kilometers)… all I did was remove some of the hot pixels that are commonly found on Cassini images taken with longer exposures.

Again… WOW.

My attempt at a color composite can be seen below, plus another treat:

It’s rough, and a little muddy because the clouds were moving between image channels (not to mention the blue channel image was rather underexposed) but here’s a color-composite of the same feature, made from images taken from a slightly different perspective:

Color composite of Saturn’s north polar vortex

Pretty darn cool… Cassini does it yet again!

The images above show an approximately 3,000-4,000-km-wide cyclone above Saturn’s north pole. Saturn is also known to have a long-lived hexagonal jet stream feature around its north pole as well, but that is not shown in those images as it runs along a lower latitude. Instead, you can see that HERE:

Saturn’s northern hexagon

Captured with wider angle in this image the hexagon structure can be made out as well as the vortex, which sits at the center just over the pole. Saturn’s hexagon is about 25,000 km (15,500 miles) in diameter… large enough to fit almost four Earths inside. This image was also acquired today.

An RGB composite of this feature is below:

Saturn’s northern hexagon – color composite

It’s been a few years since we’ve gotten such a good look at Saturn’s north pole… thanks to Cassini’s new orbital trajectory, which is taking it high above the ring plane and poles of Saturn, we now have the opportunity to view the gas giant’s dynamic upper latitudes again. I’m sure this is just a taste of what’s to come!

[MinuteGal]

Isn't that vortex actually the Nine Levels of Hell from "Dante's Inferno"?

I think I see Obama swimming around at about the third level....you can spot him by his tail.

Leni

[Red Badger]

Saturn’s North Pole Hexagon Mystery Solved?

http://news.discovery.com/space/saturns-north-pole-hexagon-mystery-solved.html

[Red Badger]

http://news.discovery.com/space/saturns-north-pole-hexagon-mystery-solved.html

[Red Badger]

http://news.discovery.com/space/saturns-north-pole-hexagon-mystery-solved.html

[Red Badger]

http://news.discovery.com/space/saturns-north-pole-hexagon-mystery-solved.html

[Captain Rhino]

Prompted by your queue, I did a web search using the words “science channel liquid hexagon” and came up with a YouTube video of an Oxford Univerity experiment illustrating the process:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQzLY17ncWM

[rarestia]

That’s the one! My apologies for any misinformation. I knew it existed, I just couldn’t exactly recall where I saw it.

[lbryce]

Thanks very much for mentioning the twin vortices on Venus. I’ve never heard of it until now.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger!

[SunkenCiv]

Ooooh, re-ping!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2963744/posts?page=18#18

[Fred Nerks]

thanks, two minute video:

The southern polar vortex on Venus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELAMuu5ivaY

First video:

Date: 07 Apr 2011
Satellite: Venus Express
Depicts: South Pole of Venus
Copyright: ESA/VIRTIS-VenusX/INAF-IASF/LESIA-Obs. Paris/Univ. Lisbon/Univ. Evora (D. Luz, Univ. Lisbon & D. Berry, Univ. Evora)

This animation is a reconstruction of the motion of the polar atmosphere of Venus, created by taking 3.8 micron radiance maps of the polar region, obtained during May 2007, and applying a shift (a rotation and translation) to the image based on the measured wind speeds.

The cross marks the South Pole and the white circle marks the centre of rotation of the polar atmospheric vortex. The outer edge of the figure is the latitude circle of 75 degrees.

Second video:

Date: 07 Apr 2011
Satellite: Venus Express
Depicts: Southern polar vortex on Venus
Copyright: ESA/VIRTIS-VenusX/INAF-IASF/LESIA-Obs. de Paris (G. Piccioni, INAF-IASF)

This image sequence shows thermal infrared radiation (at a wavelength of 3.8 microns) emitted by the cloud-tops at the southern polar region of Venus, as viewed by the VIRTIS imaging spectrometer on Venus Express. The scale has been inverted: white regions show cooler cloud, likely to be at higher altitude.

Related article: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=48596

Video Editing: Marco De Marco

[SunkenCiv]

thanks FN!