{"id":618051,"date":"2026-09-08T09:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/618051\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T09:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:16:11","slug":"apod-2026-september-8-hubble-decagon-around-saturns-south-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/618051\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 September 8 &#8211; Hubble: Decagon Around Saturn&#8217;s South Pole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p-md margin-0 media-detail-hero__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: Why are Saturn\u2019s poles geometric?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/saturn\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Saturn<\/a>\u2019s North Pole has been known to be surrounded by a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap230618.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hexagonal<\/a>\u00a0(6 sides) cloud since\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ui.adsabs.harvard.edu\/abs\/1988Icar...76..335G\/abstract\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">discovery in 1987<\/a>\u00a0in data taken by NASA\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/voyager\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Voyager spacecrafts<\/a>, which quickly flew past the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2020-april-19-cassini-approaches-saturn\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ringed world<\/a>\u00a0in the early 1980s. Now, recent observations of Saturn by the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap090525.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>\u00a0reveal a slightly different geometric cloud pattern around the South Pole: a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mathworld.wolfram.com\/Decagon.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">decagon<\/a>\u00a0(10\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.geogebra.org\/m\/bbD4R2Ck\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sides<\/a>). The geometric boundaries are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/VQzLY17ncWM\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">possibly caused<\/a>\u00a0by waves when the fast-moving gas away from the poles interacts with slower-moving gas closer to the poles. In the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/missions\/hubble\/nasas-hubble-tracks-new-decagon-encircling-saturns-south-pole\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">featured image composite<\/a>\u00a0by the Hubble taken last year, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap081027.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Pole of Saturn<\/a>\u00a0is marked by an X and surrounded by bands of circulating clouds. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/asset\/hubble\/decagon-on-saturns-south-pole-single-filter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">decagon<\/a>\u00a0appears most prominent in the dark inner regions. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap180907.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">northern hexagon<\/a>\u00a0has proven stable for over 40 years, while the stability of the southern decagon will surely remain a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/white-and-black-cat-on-white-textile-ZsMhJkloV64\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">topic of research<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>APOD&#8217;s main NASA site is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/asterisk.apod.com\/viewtopic.php?t=45023\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">moving<\/a>:\u00a0From\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">apod.nasa.gov<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">science.nasa.gov\/apod<\/a><br \/>Tomorrow&#8217;s picture:\u00a0open space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: Why are Saturn\u2019s poles geometric?\u00a0Saturn\u2019s North Pole has been known to be surrounded by a\u00a0hexagonal\u00a0(6 sides) cloud&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[243471,61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-618051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}