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Spectacular New Views of Saturn's Polar Vortex

Posted by Soulskill on from the mind-the-undertow dept.

sighted writes "Today the robotic spacecraft Cassini returned some jaw-dropping images of the odd hexagon in the planet's north polar region. The hexagon has been seen before, but the change of season has more fully revealed the feature in visible light. Cassini also zoomed in on the churning vortex at the north pole itself. The south pole features a similar maelstrom."

13 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. I want stereoscopic by Immerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What an incredible image, I'd love to see it as a stereoscopic image to really capture the depth of the clouds. Shouldn't be too hard - at orbital speeds two images taken a few seconds apart should capture incredible depth while the storm is unlikely to have changed significantly.

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    1. Re:I want stereoscopic by sighted · · Score: 2

      I don't know if anyone has made that happen yet, but someone did put together this animation of the rotation: http://cchh023.tumblr.com/image/36728440116

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  2. weather by swell · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, it's been wild here too.

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  3. Amazing pictures... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    See research done by Ana Claudia Barbosa Aguiar and Peter Read at Oxford in 2010. They were able to recreate this phenomenon in the lab. It has to do with interaction the rotating atmosphere of Saturn with a jet stream near the pole. By adjusting the speed of revolution of the jet stream they were able to create pretty much any desired shape.

  4. Re:When seeing such images, I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That will vary depending on if the ones who are to go see it are picky about making it back.

  5. Re:When seeing such images, I wonder... by SecurityTheatre · · Score: 2

    This is a pretty salient comment, although it's certainly possible to go to Saturn and back, the technical hurdles are pretty astounding and would require some substantial developments in a number of areas.

    However, if there's no intention to make the return trip, humans could go as far as Saturn with existing technology.

  6. Fractals !! by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 2

    When I looked at the pictures I saw fractals.

    Very very complex fractals.

    Hopefully one day some brainy guy can come out with a 3D fractal program that can simulate this absolute wonder.

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  7. topical by circletimessquare · · Score: 2

    http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/condescending-jupiter-meme.jpg

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  8. Re:When seeing such images, I wonder... by MartinSchou · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure we can go to Saturn and back with existing technology - it's just a matter of being willing to pay for it.

    It's not like it's impossible for us to park a few million or billion ton of rocket fuel in orbit (or however much is needed for a round trip) - it's just extremely expensive to do so.

    Same with building a properly shielded capsule for the crew to be aboard.

  9. Alien Base!! by b_dover · · Score: 2

    A hexagon!? Clearly that has to be the work of intelligent beings. There must be some sort of alien presence on Saturn. The clouds probably hide the base they have used to observe for centuries. I hope the History channel's Ancient Aliens puts some of their first class investigative journalists and deductive scientists on this right away.

  10. Re:No color? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    This is an amazing image, but why isn't it in color?

    Because color is for pussies. Astronomers use either plain gray-scale imaging, or, perhaps even more often, a set of filters to extract bands or wavelengths of interest. The problem is, all colors assigned to a filtered gray-scale image or a combination thereof are usually false colors, since they generally don't correspond to the sensitivity bands of the retinal cones in your eye. The false colors are often useful, but you'd complain the same ("the colors look weird!"). Fairly rarely do astronomers take a veritable RGB combination - they usually do it when a major press release is on horizon, to have some nice pics for the lay public. ;-)

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  11. Obvious explanation by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 3, Funny

    There is a large Hex nut holding the poles together - and you call yourselves scientists?

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  12. Re:When seeing such images, I wonder... by Greyfox · · Score: 2
    You mean out a spacecraft window? Even if we go there and an astronaut decides to go for a spacewalk, how different is that going to feel from seeing it on your monitor, really? If we told you we were sending you to Saturn and then stuffed you into an underground complex and simulated the ride, do you think you'd be able to tell the difference? Well I mean other than the gravity thing... There's a lot of stuff between you and space in a spacecraft. Over the course of a few months, I suspect the trip would go from exciting to routine to rather boring pretty quickly.

    With the images from Curiosity, I've felt a bit of awe over these images from an entirely new planet that mankind has never walked on and may never walk on in my lifetime. It's as close as I'm ever going to come to seeing the surface of a different world personally. If I were looking for some exploration, I think I'd rather spend my remaining years exploring the islands of the South Pacific. More... wossisname... breathable atmosphere... over there.

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