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                           Astronomy Picture of the Day   
      
       Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our   
         fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation   
                       written by a professional astronomer.   
      
                                   2023 June 18   
         Saturn's north pole is shown with vibrant false colors. The outer   
       boundary appears as a rounded hexagon. Please see the explanation for   
                            more detailed information.   
      
                             Saturn's Northern Hexagon   
        Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team   
      
      Explanation: Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is sure.   
      Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s,   
      nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar   
      System. Acquiring its first sunlit views of far northern Saturn in late   
      2012, the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera recorded this   
      stunning, false-color image of the ringed planet's north pole. The   
      composite of near-infrared image data results in red hues for low   
      clouds and green for high ones, giving the Saturnian cloudscape a vivid   
      appearance. This and similar images show the stability of the hexagon   
      even 20+ years after Voyager. Movies of Saturn's North Pole show the   
      cloud structure maintaining its hexagonal structure while rotating.   
      Unlike individual clouds appearing like a hexagon on Earth, the Saturn   
      cloud pattern appears to have six well defined sides of nearly equal   
      length. Four Earths could fit inside the hexagon. Beyond the cloud tops   
      at the upper right, arcs of the planet's eye-catching rings are tinted   
      bright blue.   
      
                         Tomorrow's picture: space tornado   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.   
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                         A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,   
                              NASA Science Activation   
                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
      
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