Posted on 12/05/2013 4:08:40 PM PST by lbryce
A NASA probe has captured an amazing video of the huge and mysterious six-sided vortex spinning around Saturn's north pole.
Scientists created the new video of Saturn's vortex from 128 images snapped by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in December 2012. It's the highest-resolution movie yet obtained of the giant hexagon, which is about 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) wide and has been swirling for at least 30 years, researchers said.
"The hexagon is just a current of air, and weather features out there that share similarities to this are notoriously turbulent and unstable," Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a statement. "A hurricane on Earth typically lasts a week, but this has been here for decades — and who knows — maybe centuries." [Latest Saturn Photos by the Cassini Orbiter]
The Saturn vortex is composed of a jet stream racing through the planet's northern atmosphere at 200 mph (322 km/h) or so. While most other planets in the solar system are known to have jet streams, nothing quite like the hexagon has ever been seen anywhere else
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Imagine how scientists must have felt when getting onlty a partial view of the Hexagon when the Voyager spacecraft caught a glimpse of it in its 1980's flyby image of Saturn. At the time they thought it was merely temporary having to wait twenty years to find it was still there.
Very cool and bizarre.
Just air. Nothing to see here.
Now, if it said “Allah” or was minaret-shaped, I’m sure NASA would find it noteworthy.
Somewhat resembles the placenta after my son was born.
Reminds me of the lightshows at the fillmore.
That six-legged comet might be the key to opening this thing up.
I’m just throwing this out there. A planet this large may have a giant diamond core and the gas circulating at the pole of the planet produces a wake as it passes along the facets.
Indeed. I'd like to hear atmospheric scientists try to explain this. Its existence runs counter to everything we know about rotating atmospheric phenomena.
beautiful. preternatural.
Yes. Flies, like the ones crawling on Obama, have six legs.
Simple. Our global warming has caused it.
You know......you just may have something there. Perhaps we should get Congress to fund a study. Or something...
additional:
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft Obtains Best Views of Saturn Hexagon
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