Either Saturn likes playing role-playing games, or it has really weird weather patterns... and we know it has weird weather patterns. Behold, Saturn's northern hexagon!
This odd six-sided pattern -- which is over 20,000 kilometers across -- was first seen in Voyager images back in the 1970s. When Cassini arrived at Saturn it was winter in the planet's northern hemisphere, so the hexagon was shrouded in darkness. Cassini's infrared cameras were able to get some images, and while they did reveal needed info on the feature, astronomers really wanted higher-res visible light images. Finally, earlier this year the Sun started peeking over into Saturn's arctic regions as the Equinox approached. When dawn broke over the north pole, astronomers pointed Cassini's higher-resolution visible light cameras there. This new image, taken in January, is a mosaic from those observations. It reveals quite a bit about the hexagon. You can easily see that ...
