A Spanish team has discovered a decagonal wave at Saturn’s south pole for the first time
Thanks to the Voyager probe, we know that Saturn has a long-lasting hexagonal wave at its north pole, which is linked to a powerful jet of matter and energy. Now, a team led by the University of the Basque Country has discovered, for the first time, the presence of a decagonal wave at the south pole. The observations, carried out from the ground and using the Hubble Space Telescope, show that the decagon appears to have formed between 2023 and 2025 and may continue to evolve, in contrast to the more than 40 years of stability exhibited by the hexagon. The research is published in Science Advances and suggests that the ten-sided shape could be a meandering wave trapped by the curvature of a dominant atmospheric current.
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