
Saturn's South Pole Unveils a Ten-Sided Polar Wave
Scientists have spotted a ten-sided decagon around Saturn’s south pole, the planet’s second polygonal weather feature after the north-pole hexagon. Using 2023–2025 observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and amateur astronomers, the decagon appears as a vast atmospheric wave riding on a strong eastward jet near 60°S, migrating about 10 km/h while the jet runs about 420 km/h. The feature spans multiple altitudes and could not be reproduced by current simulations, leaving its formation mechanism and relation to a nearby anticyclone (the “Red Spot”) open to further study. The finding, published in Science Advances (Sánchez-Lavega et al., 2026), offers a real-time window into how Saturn builds polygonal weather patterns.













