Saturn's strange hexagon stands out in new photo of the ringed planet
A spacecraft speeding through the solar system 619,000 miles from Saturn snapped a photo of the ringed planet's north pole in stark relief.
The new image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, shows Saturn's strange hexagonal jet stream surrounding the strong hurricane at the pole.
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"The north pole of Saturn sits at the center of its own domain," NASA said in a pretty poetic statement about the image.
"Around it swirl the clouds, driven by the fast winds of Saturn. Beyond that orbits Saturn's retinue of moons and the countless small particles that form the ring."
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
The hexagon-shaped jet stream is one of Saturn's most distinctive and strange looking features.
If you were to fly over the planet and look down at the north pole with its hexagon yourself, it would probably look blue and gold, according to NASA.
So, something like this:
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Cassini hasn't been able to capture views of Saturn's north pole like this for very long.
When the mission first got to Saturn in 2004, the pole was shrouded in darkness until August 2009, when the sun started to peek up above the planet's horizon, NASA said.
Since then, Cassini has flown above the poles many times, giving scientists their first really great views of the hexagon and and the seemingly constant hurricane of the north pole.
Cassini is now nearing the end of its mission at Saturn.
The long-lived spacecraft will make its planned plunge into the planet's thick atmosphere in September, destroying the craft and bringing its mission to a close.
Before that, however, Cassini will dive in between the planet and its rings, giving scientists — and the rest of us — a view of the planet as never seen by human eyes before.
