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🇦🇺 Australia /Technology

Backyard astronomer helps make world-first discovery of Saturn’s southern decagon

From ABC Australia · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Outcome reported
  • Former mine worker Trevor Barry helped identify a 10-sided atmospheric wave around Saturn’s south pole from his backyard observatory in Broken Hill, New South Wales.
  • Researchers described the feature as the first large jet pattern observed in Saturn’s southern hemisphere, similar to the hexagonal wave at the north pole.
  • Barry’s observations contributed to a peer-reviewed paper in Science Advances, alongside work by researchers at NASA and universities.

From a homemade observatory in outback New South Wales, former mine worker Trevor Barry helped reveal a feature never before seen on a planet in the solar system: a 10-sided atmospheric wave around Saturn’s south pole.

From mid-2024, I started to capture what I described to my professor as a ripple moving down, bright spots forming a ripple that moved into the south polar collar of Saturn.

· Trevor BarryBarry described how he first recorded the southern-pole feature.

Barry, known affectionately as “Terrestrial Trevor,” has collected images and measurements of Saturn from his home in Broken Hill since the early 2000s. In mid-2024, he noticed what he first described to his professor as a ripple moving into the planet’s southern polar collar, with bright spots forming along it.

He sent the data to Agustín Sánchez-Lavega in Spain, with whom he has worked since 2008. Sánchez-Lavega urged him to think of the feature as a wave and not circulate the finding. Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and another collaborator, had also seen the beginning of the structure in 2023 Hubble data.

Agustín got back to me, and he said, 'Well, Trev, never mind ripple, think wave and don't circulate it.'

· Trevor BarryBarry recalled Sánchez-Lavega's response after reviewing the observations.

The discovery, reported in a peer-reviewed paper in Science Advances, marks the first observation of a large jet pattern in Saturn’s southern hemisphere. It resembles the hexagonal wave rotating around Saturn’s north pole, a feature first observed during NASA’s Voyager flybys in 1980 and 1981.

The fact that now a decagon has formed at the south pole, this is a world-first discovery of a feature never before seen on a planet in our solar system.

· Trevor BarryBarry described the significance of the 10-sided atmospheric structure.

Barry said he needed exceptionally stable atmospheric conditions to produce polar projections clear enough to show the structure. Simon called him one of NASA’s “premier Saturn observers,” praising his meticulous reports, strong images and long-term tracking of the planet.

He is one of our premier Saturn observers.

· Amy SimonThe NASA planetary scientist praised Barry's observations and long-term work.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Australia in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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