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Saturn In All Its Glory

Posted by timothy on from the all-hail-the-hypnotoad dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "On Oct. 10, 2013, the Cassini spacecraft took a series of wide-angle pictures of Saturn from well above the plane of the rings. Croatian software developer and amateur astronomical image processor Gordan Ugarkovic assembled them into a stunning mosaic (mirrored on Flickr), showing the planet from a high angle not usually seen. There's a lot to see in this image, including the rings (and the gaps therein), moons, and the planet itself, including the remnants of a monstrous northern hemisphere storm that kicked off in 2010. It's truly wondrous."

4 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. About that hexagonal polar vortex... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Every time anyone mentions Saturn's hexagonal polar 'storm' they seem to imply that it's an unnatural phenomenon.

    It's not, nor as unusual as some used to think. In fact they've recreated it in the lab with nothing more than a spinning table.
    The speed and viscosity create oscillating eddies which interfere and create the polygonal shapes.

    http://news.sciencemag.org/2010/04/saturns-strange-hexagon-recreated-lab

  2. The Fly-by Movie by umafuckit · · Score: 5, Informative

    For fly-by movie assembled from Cassini's images see here: http://vimeo.com/11386048

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  3. Re:SATURN !! THE GOD OF WAR !! by Greg01851 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mars is the God of War. Saturn is the Roman God of Agriculture ;)

  4. Re:Popularity of space stuff based on replies by umafuckit · · Score: 4, Informative

    It doesn't help that there is now so much light pollution that most people have either never seen the Milky Way, or see such skies so rarely that they haven't had a chance to become personally anquanted with the night sky in any real depth.

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