The mysterious Saturn hexagon shown in color
At the North pole of Saturn is a mysterious hexagon — vortex with a diameter of 25 000 km. last week, the probe “Cassini” flew very close from the clouds of Saturn and photographed the hexagon, but the pictures turned incomprehensible for the average viewer.
So artists enthusiasts decided to treat the black-and-white photographs, to show how a giant vortex looks in color. As a result of processing in the center of the hexagon were bright blue area.
Processed color composite of Saturn’s north polar vortex from @CassiniSaturn”s pass on April 26, 2017 pic.twitter.com/58pyMjKx42
— Jason Major (@JPMajor) April 28, 2017
Color in the photographs is natural and is obtained by combining red, green, and blue spectrum, as in Amateur cameras. Pictures taken with a wide-angle camera.
On 26 April, having slipped between the inner ring and the planet, Cassini passed 3,000 miles over the cloud tops of Saturn (pressure is about 1 bar is comparable with atmospheric pressure on Earth at sea level) and 300 km from the edge closest to the planet ring.
No spacecraft has never been so close to Saturn before. Scientists admit that they really didn’t know what there is between the ring and the planet, and could only speculate. Fortunately, the unit has successfully dived into the hole and out the other side.
The first true-color images of #Saturn from Cassini”s daring dive are stunning! @DiscoverMag @Pharaoness @JPMajor https://t.co/NVYTzDMMzJ pic.twitter.com/H6QUKvNdp1
— Tom Yulsman (@yulsman) April 28, 2017
Cassini flew at a speed of 124,000 miles per hour, so there was a danger that his work will break the small particles rotating at the edge of the ring. To avoid this the machine used one of their plates-antennas as a shield (4 m in diameter), guiding him in the direction of potentially hazardous particles. Because of this conversion antenna Cassini suspended relationship with the Land at the time of passage through the gap.