The Cassini
spacecraft circling Saturn takes a colorful look at an odd hexagon-shaped
feature at the ringed planet’s north pole.
NASA
released other
views and a movie
of the hexagon shape in motion Tuesday, but this view above yields an infrared
take on the Saturnian oddity.
The red
color indicates heat, which wells up from the warm interior of Saturn, while
clouds about 62 miles (100 kilometers) deeper than those seen in visible images
block light to cause the dark silhouette lines.
The blue
hues are the result of sunlight striking the far limb – or edge – of Saturn,
since the rest of this image was taken during nighttime conditions.
Cassini used its visual and infrared
mapping spectrometer to capture this view in what is the first complete look of
the entire feature and north pole region in a single shot.
Scientists
have known about Saturn’s odd hexagon-like feature for more than two decades,
when it turned up in images snapped by NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 probes.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
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