Astronomers Spot a Giant 10-Sided Storm Swirling Around Saturn's South Pole
Astronomers Detect a 10-Sided Structure in Saturn's Atmosphere
For decades, Saturn's six-sided hexagon at its north pole was thought to be a unique oddity. Now, astronomers led by Agustín Sánchez-Lavega have discovered a second polygon—a decagon—around the planet's south pole. First glimpsed in amateur images in 2024 and confirmed by Hubble, the ten-sided wave rides a jet stream at 60°S and appears to be a vertically layered structure. Unlike the long-lived hexagon, this decagon formed recently, possibly influenced by a nearby anticyclone. Its evolution could reveal how Saturn's atmosphere creates these geometric marvels.
The discovery of the wave really did come as a surprise, as neither earlier images of Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope nor those captured by the Cassini spacecraft whilst orbiting the planet between 2004 and 2017 had shown it.
- henearkr
Not a "structure", but rather atmospheric resonance create this polygonal shape, from cyclones self-arrangement etc.
Same thing on Jupiter, by the way, known since a long time.
I'd say that "structure" is click-baity, as it evokes some artifact.
- tastyfreeze
Years ago there was a video on YouTube showing that geometric shapes appear in a vortex of water at different rates of spin. While it is neat that these shapes appear in atmosphere of another planet I have since assumed that it is the same dynamic as shapes in water vortices.
- yipinwong
There is a talk amongst Astrophysics (not a serious one) that we showed up too late as a civilization, and Universes thrived at around 5 billion years after the big bang.
Now we are 13.8 billion years old, and the Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago.
That 7+ billion year gap is so huge, we cannot even detect any structures anywhere.
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My thoughts out of my @$$
The possibility is the Mars where there is a big scar on it, where it could have had been a space war, but cannot figure out as it's been billions of years ago.
Same for the Saturn. It could have had harboring another life form and try to protect itself with the thick atmospheric shield in the gas giant to avoid the demise the Mars has encountered.
- mettamage
Looks like a better Sauron's eye. If there are any Hollywood movie producers here, please make this an evil villain vibe in a movie. Saturn is awesome
- heyitsmedotjayb
Economy so bad I'm looking up rentals in Saturn's 10 sided structure