clipped from www.jpl.nasa.gov

An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling
the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists

"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with
six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and
member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen anything like
this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped
waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to
see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

"Once we understand its dynamical nature, this long-lived, deep-seated polar
hexagon may give us a clue to the true rotation rate of the deep atmosphere and
perhaps the interior," added Baines.

scientists
think it is not linked to Saturn's radio emissions or to auroral activity, as once
contemplated

with NASA's Cassini mission.