“We’ve Never Seen Anything Quite Like This”: A Strange Ten-Sided “Structure” Has Been Spotted on Saturn’s North Pole

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has glimpsed a strange ten-sided atmospheric wave at Saturn’s south pole, the first regular-sided jet pattern ever observed there. The discovery, reported in Science Advances, reveals a new atmospheric phenomenon on the gas giant. Researchers detected signs of a decagonal (ten-sided) wave, which they traced back to observations from 2023 to 2025. The wave is an interesting three-dimensional feature that extends through multiple layers of the atmosphere within one of Saturn’s jet streams. The Hubble data confirmed the feature’s presence back to 2023, and the wave appears to be strengthening, offering a rare opportunity to witness a giant atmospheric pattern develop.

• The decagon is the first regular-sided jet pattern observed on Saturn.
• The wave is detected in Hubble images from 2023 to 2025.
• The wave is an undulating band that appears to shift between observations.
• The wave is part of Saturn’s jet stream system and is observed in multiple wavelengths.
• The discovery is part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, which began collecting data in 2014.

The decagon is different from Saturn’s northern hexagon, which has been observed for over 40 years. The southern decagon appears to be forming recently, and its formation is still a mystery. The wave is an important new discovery that could provide insights into atmospheric dynamics on gas giants. Follow-up observations and computer models will be needed to fully understand how the decagon formed and how long it may last. The paper, “A Decagon Wave Around Saturn’s South Pole,” appeared in Science Advances on September 2, 2026.

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