Saturn's North Polar Hexagon Numerical Modeling Results

In 1980, Voyager images revealed the presence of a circumpolar wave at 78 degrees planetographic latitude in the northern hemisphere of Saturn. It was notable for having a dominant planetary wavenumber-six zonal mode, and for being stationary with respect to Saturn's Kilometric Radiation rotation rate measured by Voyager. The center of this hexagonal feature was coincident with the center of a sharp eastward jet with a peak speed of 100 ms-1 and it had a meridional width of about 4 degrees. This hexagonal feature was confirmed in 1991 through ground-based observations, and it was observed again in 2006 with the Cassini VIMS instrument. The latest observations highlight the longevity of the hexagon and suggest that it extends at least several bars deep into the atmosphere. We use the Explicit Planetary Isentropic Code (EPIC) to perform high-resolution numerical simulations of this unique feature. We show that a wavenumber six instability mode arises naturally from initially barotropic jets when seeded with weak random turbulence. We also discuss the properties of the wave activity on the background vertical stability, zonal wind, planetary rotation rate and adjacent vortices. Computational resources were provided by the New Mexico Computing Applications Center and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and the Comparative Planetology Laboratory at the University of Louisville.