Space photos of the week: The mysterious hexagon of Saturn

This psychedelic view, filtered by color, shows the unique hexagonal cloud structure at the north pole of Saturn. When Cassini approached Saturn for the first time in 2004, the calendar of seasons placed this region in the dark; it was only much later that the spacecraft was able to observe this massive and bizarre cyclone with an eye about 50 times larger than that of the eyes of the hurricane on Earth. Scientists are unsure of what creates the hexagonal shape. until here, they understand it as a deep jet filled with big and small whirlpools (like the whitish near the bottom of the hexagon). They also note distinct concentrations of smaller haze particles on the inside compared to the outside.

Jupiter's sugarcane, red and white color palette is eye-catching, but it turns out that history is not limited to that. The agency has turned to citizen scientists to process the raw image data and, as they did, bands of blues appeared, seen as little present in the company. 39; atmosphere. This adds to the astronomical aspect of the largest member of our solar system. WIRED, on the other hand, calls Jupiter's atmosphere "super bizarre".

Jupiter is a kind of Sauron of space. The meteorological events of the giant planet sometimes intermingle with each other while some stand on their own – like this gaze-gazing storm in the universe. The resolution on this image is so clear that you can actually discern depth and shadows for puffy clouds. Scientists were enthusiastic about finding higher elevation clouds that cast shadows, because that's how they can begin to determine their composition and origin.

More from 70s-style Saturnalia: Discover the planet-shaped planet in ultraviolet blue, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope. Saturn has quite spectacular aurorae (shown in bright turquoise at the North Pole), which, according to scientists, are stimulated by the solar wind and the rotation of the planet itself.

These are two active regions of our star closely seen by NASA's dynamic solar observatory. When viewed through an extreme ultraviolet filter, areas of intense magnetism appear in bright white. These magnetic surges are often the cause of solar storms, which create the aurora on Earth.