Mar 27 2007
From The Space Library
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) released images of “an odd, six-sided, honeycomb- shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn.” NASA’s ESA spacecraft had collected the images in thermal-infrared light during a 12-day period beginning on 30 October 2006. NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft had also collected images of the hexagon-shaped feature more than 20 years before, indicating the long-lived nature of the feature. The ESA images also revealed that the hexagon, which is 25,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) across, extends approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) into the atmosphere, much deeper than previously thought. Kevin H. Baines, an atmospheric expert and member of ESA’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA’s JPL, remarked that scientists had never seen a feature like the hexagon on any other planet. Because of its thick atmosphere, where circularly shaped waves and convective cells dominate, Saturn was the last place scientists had expected to see such a feature.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), “ESA Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn,” news release 2007-034, 27 March 2007, http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-034 (accessed 1 February 2010).
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