Embedded Files
(It is the throne room and the council has been convened to discuss matters of urgency. The environment is tense and the members are quite grave)
Sun : What am I seeing in this analysis?!
Jupiter: Yes sir, the figures are completely true, and it’s quite saddening…
Sun: I can clearly see that, Jupiter.
*sighs*
I’m more interested in figuring out the possible reasons behind it. What do you guys have to say for yourself?
Uranus: Sir, I think it's because of the earthly beings, their ridiculous interest in tourism and finding new places seems intrusive to the ET’s, and thus the decline in tourism.
Earth: That’s absolutely bogus, Uranus. * smirks * Earthlings are the reason why tourism started in the first place!
Saturn: Oh I agree... They glorified my rings to an extent that I still get a lot of visitors here.
*fans herself vainly*
Sun : *shakes her head in exasperation* Okay yeah, you do have a point. Uranus, tone it down, will you? But then what could be the main reason for the low count of visitors?
Mars : (ever the quintessential teachers’ pet, adjusts his glasses and says) Sir, I guess it's totally because of the dearth of new places to explore. Every other system of planets and stars in our galaxy keeps adding new places to visit, but in our case, we are still continuing with the same old places. We lack innovation, you see. This probably is the primary reason for this gradual decline in intergalactic visitors.
Sun: Good point, I don't think you're quite off the point here, Mars.
But are there any new places in your mind? Suggestions anyone?
Neptune: Sir, I do have a suggestion!
Saturn has a hexagonal cloud formation, which is currently under extensive research by human beings and they have elaborated on it quite a lot …
* blushes fiercely *
(Neptune has had the biggest crush on Saturn ever since its formation)
Moreover, it’s so beautiful to see, one would be completely mesmerized.
* dreamy eyes *
Though it is small, it's so beautiful that it can increase our visitor count greatly and in turn our tourism sector will be revived.
(Saturn waves sweetly and Neptune goes weak on their knees)
Jupiter: Good idea, I could also add in my red colossal storm which mind you, is a hexagon which until quite recently was a pentagon.
Sun: Excellent, I’m going forward with this idea. Saturn, your job is to make a travel brochure regarding this place . We shall name it Saturn's hexagon and feel free to dedicate a section to Jupiter.
Saturn: Wait what!? Me? Why do I always have to…
*shuts up because sun fixes her with that infamous look which makes everyone quiver*
Okay, sir, the brochure will be ready within a week or so.
* mumbles under her breath *
(One Earthling stole this classified record from the Sun’s deepest chambers albeit at a price of being dead, and et voila! This is what it says)
TRAVEL BROCHURE ON SATURN HEXAGON:
WELCOME TO SATURN!
The unparalleled magnificence of our solar system with its family of stars, the galaxy, and the eight planets, has been mesmerizing us since time immemorial. However, have we ever questioned ourselves about which is the most beautiful planet in our solar system?
The answer to this question comes in the form of an immediate picture, a colossal planet with its exquisite, lustrous rings around it and whose spectacular appearance has kept us enthralled for ages. You might have guessed it by now. Yes, it's Saturn!
Excited about the tour? Maybe a little apprehensive too?
Well, I could provide you with a bit of insider information about the planet, that hopefully makes you want to come here and get a taste of its natural wonders! After going through this brochure and getting a once over of all the stuff that makes this planet what it is, I promise that you, fellow tourists, will be barely holding on to your seats, and the desire to pay a visit to Saturn will indeed peak.
Saturn, as you all know, can be envisaged as a giant spherical ball with majestic rings that revolve around it that contribute to the ethereal appearance. This planet sits sixth in rank if you measure the distance from the Sun. This planet of ours is basically made up of gases and thus names like "The Gas Giant" and associating it with a huge, puffy balloon is not very much off-topic here. It's not much of a joke as it may seem at first glance but the fun is that if you immerse this planet in an almost endless expanse of water, it would float! This perplexing fact is because the planet has a density of about 0.7 g/cc which happens to be lesser than water. Saturn has several moons that revolve around it, the largest of among them being Titan, the only moon to have a proper atmospheric cover.
The fun doesn't end here, of course. The winds blowing here reach a maximum of about 1800 km/hr; a figure that is too enormous to perceive in real life. While on the topic of wind patterns, the "Saturn's hexagon” should definitely be mentioned. It is the area formed by stormy air currents whose vortices give rise to a horizontal air jet at the equator giving rise to a hexagonal cloud formation at the North pole of the planet.
Any discussion about Saturn is rather incomplete without it's rings that make the planet the most unique of them all. Formed as a result of the accumulation of ice, dust particles, and rock fragments, these add to the splendor of the planet.
Thus our Saturn undoubtedly sits as the cynosure of our Solar System and is a perfect hub for tourists like yourself.
So, quite obviously all of this sounds fascinating. We are hence by providing you a taste of all the wonderful assets of this planet. We didn't intend to spoil it but we just couldn't help ourselves. It is much more beautiful than you could ever imagine, a euphoric dreamland in the true sense of the term!
Saturn’s hexagon: The Basics
Saturn's hexagon is basically a hexagonal cloud pattern in the north pole of the planet Saturn. It is a peculiar current of air, and a typical weather phenomenon which has a lot of similarities to the hurricanes which happen on Earth but is way bigger and stronger. Moreover, a typical hurricane on Earth lasts for at most a week or so and is spiral in nature, but Saturn's hurricane at the north pole is hexagonal in shape and it has been there for decades -- and who knows -- maybe centuries.
Well, you will visit it or not, your wish, but note down the address
After reaching Saturn, go to 78°N.
Note: In case you visit 78°S, don't blame this brochure, because there is no similar tourist spot in the South. It is solely for North Saturn.
However, once you reach there, you are luckier than the one writing this brochure. Trust me.
You will find a hexagonal cloud pattern there.
The sides of Saturn's hexagon are almost 14,500 km long, almost 2,000 km longer than the diameter of Earth. Worried about how you will do so, well with the help of our tourism crew you can witness this magnificent thing from different angles as we have created some AI-controlled superfast anti-storm vehicle cum spacecraft. These spacecraft can take you as close as you want. In terms of width, it is around 29,000 km wide and 300 km high. It is actually thought to be a jet stream made of atmospheric gases moving at 320 km/h. Too fast right, but don’t worry till you have one of our anti-storm vehicles with you. It can even take you to the eye of the storm if you want. It rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s, which is the same period as Saturn's radio emissions from its interior.
Discovery of Saturn hexagon:
Saturn's polar hexagon was discovered by the Voyager mission (1981), but most of its features were understood and also appreciated after it was revisited in 2006 by the Cassini mission.
Though in the first phase Cassini could only take thermal infrared images since till then the north pole was under their winter season so it didn’t receive any sunlight. After experiencing the equinox in 2009, sunrays started lightening up the north pole and hence we could take a lot of pictures after that getting the actual color of it and many more interesting features.
Cassini also captured a video of the hexagonal weather pattern while traveling at the same speed as the planet, therefore recording the movement of the hexagon.
The reason behind Saturn hexagon:
There are in general two basic hypotheses behind it, out of which one was developed by two scientists cum interplanetary storm chasers, Rakesh K. Yadav and Jeremy Bloxham, both of whom ply their trade in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
They created a 3D simulation model of Saturn’s atmosphere and after month-long experiments, they came out with a peculiar phenomenon deep thermal convection where transfer of heat is mainly carried out by fluid movement, which in turn gives rise to large polar cyclones and an eastward jet stream whose mixture at the top results in the formation of a polygonal shaped structure. The scientists also said that in Saturn when cyclones surround a larger eastwardly flowing jet stream near it’s the north pole, the storms start interacting with the larger system and hence are successful in confining the jet stream to the top of the planet. This process results in the formation of the stream into a hexagon.
Oxford University, one of the leading universities, on the other hand, developed the other hypothesis: that regular shapes like hexagons were created in the laboratory when a circular tank of liquid was rotated at different speeds at its center and periphery. Though the most common shape is six-sided, shapes with three to eight sides are also produced. Hence, in Saturn’s atmosphere where there is a steep latitudinal gradient in the speed of the atmospheric winds, hexagon forms.
And of course, we are bound to ask, why not the South pole?
The simple explanation is that polygons do not form at wind boundaries unless the speed differential and viscosity parameters are within certain margins and so are not present at other likely places, such as Saturn's south pole or the poles of Jupiter.
But ….it has been recently brought to light by Andy Ingersoll laboratory of the California Institute of Technology who did a mathematical study and found that a stable geometric arrangement of the polygons can occur on any planet when a storm is surrounded by a ring of winds turning in the opposite direction to the storm itself. This phenomenon is called an anticyclonic ring.
(Fingers crossed, More brochures to follow.
Keep visiting!)
Why is Saturn’s Hexagon Interesting?
For tourists and travelers, new tourist spots are always interesting and attractive, especially when the spot is placed on the verge of a planet with a ring revolving around it. Yet another interesting fact of visiting Saturn's Hexagon is achieving two goals at a go.
Humankind is yet to find life elsewhere but Earth. You have the opportunity and potential to prove yourself better than all those 7.9 billion humans residing on Earth! Give it a try? Just follow the address provided above, and prove your blood.
So here is the entire picture.
“The storm is changing color in the course of time.”,
Sounds peculiar, right? Well turns out, not so much apparently.
We will be elaborating on the most interesting features of Saturn’s hexagon which is none other than the color change.
The hexagon was formerly mostly blue in color but between 2012 to 2016, it changed to more of a golden color, primarily because of sunlight that is creating haze since the north pole is exposed to sunlight due to the change in season. This change took place as Saturn experienced equinox in 2009, after which its north pole was subjected to continuous sunrays, which in turn led to the production of photochemical aerosols until it reached the summer solstice in 2017, resulting in the golden haze that we see today.
All these beautiful changes were observed by the Cassini spacecraft.
⏩
⏩
Jupiter’s Pentagon- Similar example(Yet not Congruent) :
Hey wait! Don’t return home just yet! You have a neighboring planet to visit. Surprisingly, you have the opportunity to see stunning things at both the North and South poles there.
Jupiter is a turbulent place. Its colossal red cyclone is the planet's most famous storm; But when NASA's Juno probe arrived in 2016, it noticed something even more wildly tempestuous - the gas giant's polar regions(the main tourist spots).
At the north pole, nine storms raged, there is a large central one bang on the pole and eight smaller ones arrayed around it. At the south pole, there was a similar, but slightly different arrangement with six storms, five arrayed in an almost perfect pentagon around a central cyclone. These cyclones are all similarly sized and at each pole, all cyclones are spinning in the same direction - counterclockwise in the north, and clockwise in the south.
Not much was known about these storms but the most recent flyby - the 22nd of the Juno probe's data-collecting missions, it swooped in just 3,500 kilometres above Jupiter's cloud tops and it imaged something new with its optical and infrared instruments. The storms at the south pole had formed not a pentagon, but a hexagon. Boom! There was a newcomer.
The data from Juno's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument indicates that it went from a pentagon of cyclones surrounding one at the centre to a hexagonal arrangement.
So ladies and gentlemen, note. Saturn has a hexagonal storm in its Northern pole, a polar vortex at the Southern pole. To refer to Jupiter, it has both Pentagonal and Hexagonal storms. While the North pole holds a Pentagon, the South is forming a Hexagon.
AREN'T YOU FEELING CURIOUS TO VISIT THE SOLAR SYSTEM NOW? JUST BREAK THE MONOTONY, MOVE YOURSELF FROM THE BED, PACK YOUR STUFF, BRING YOUR FAMILY AND HAVE A FULL MONTH VACATION HERE.
I BET IF YOU PUT ONE FOOT FORWARD TO START THIS TRIP, YOU YOURSELF WILL BE WILLING TO GO ANOTHER THOUSAND MILES TO AMUSE YOURSELF TILL THE VERY END! SO TRY YOUR LUCK AND JOIN US PLANETS IN MAKING THE SOLAR SYSTEM EVEN MORE AWESOME!
Written by Ananyo Mondal, Debajyoti Chakrabarti , Saptarsi Ghosh
Report abuse