Saturn's Active North Pole

A bizarre six-sided feature encircling the north pole of Saturn near 78 degrees north latitude has been spied by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.This image was acquired on Oct. 29, 2006, from an average distance of 902,000 kilometers (560,400 miles) above the cloud tops of Saturn, and is one of the first clear images ever taken of the north polar region as seen from a unique polar perspective.

Originally discovered and last observed by a spacecraft during NASA's Voyager flybys of the early 1980's, the new views of this polar hexagon taken in late 2006 prove that this is an unusually long-lived feature on Saturn.