NASA Cassini Image: Saturn's north polar hexagon

Saturn's north polar hexagon basks in the Sun's light now that spring has come to the northern hemisphere. 

Many smaller storms dot the north polar region and Saturn's signature rings, which appear to disappear into Saturn's shadow, put in an appearance in the background.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 750 nanometers.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 403,000 miles (649,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 21 degrees. 

Image scale is 22 miles (35 kilometers) per pixel.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

HEXAGON NASA's Ex-Spy Satellite to Seek out Dark Energy

Astronomers are excited by the possibility of using one of two cast-off spy satellite telescopes gifted to NASA to probe for dark energy.

They have already come up with a design that would incorporate the spy telescope into the proposed Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), a high-priority NASA mission that would hunt for dark energy, exoplanets and supernovae.

Though a final review and economic analysis won't be released until April, the new design based on the donated scopes would boost WFIRST's abilities significantly, some researchers say.

But the concept could also require more power and a bigger launch vehicle, potentially raising the project's roughly $1.5 billion price tag.