During its mission to Saturn in 1981, NASA’s Voyager 1 probe discovered an odd, long-lived hexagonal cloud pattern around the gas giant’s north polar region.
The hexagon, later confirmed by the Cassini mission, has sides that are about 14,500km (around 9,010 miles) long. Its remarkable shape is a reminder of how nature can surprise us.
Scientists now believe the feature is due to a sharp latitudinal gradient in wind speed in Saturn’s atmosphere.
This results in a wavelike motion, or ‘standing wave’, which spaces itself out to form the hexagonal shape.
The same phenomenon has been demonstrated successfully in the laboratory using rotating tanks of fluid.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Lily Gallagher, Norwich) ‘Why is there a hexagon on Saturn?’
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