Saturn's famous hexagon has a bigger, weirder sibling at the opposite pole
Future Technology
New article published
SPACE
Saturn's famous hexagon has a bigger, weirder sibling at the opposite pole
104,000 miles across, 10 sides, and still growing. That is the feature the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed at Saturn's south pole, described in a paper published in Science Advances on 2 September.
Key Takeaways
- Hubble confirmed a 10-sided geometric wave encircling Saturn's south pole, roughly 104,000 miles across
- The feature was first detected in 2023 and has been growing stronger over three years of observations
- Saturn's northern hexagon has persisted for 40 years, but the southern decagon is structurally different in almost every way
- No single accepted model explains why gas giant atmospheres produce geometric shapes
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