Giant Hurricane Detected on Saturn
May 1, 2013
Scientists have discovered a hurricane on Saturn that is 20 times as large as the average hurricane on Earth. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists with the first close-up views of the enormous storm swirling around Saturn’s north pole. The hurricane swirls inside a mysterious six-sided feature first photographed in 2006. The hexagon is unlike anything seen on any other planet. The Cassini probe was able to photograph the storm in sunlight only after the planet’s north pole emerged from the darkness of its polar winter. Cassini’s orbit was also shifted so the probe would pass directly over the north pole.
The eye of the hurricane is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide. The clouds circling around the outer edge of the storm are moving at 330 miles (530 meters) per hour. By contrast, the strongest hurricanes on Earth have winds of up to 200 miles (320 kilometers) per hour. Also, unlike hurricanes on Earth, which generally move, the Saturnian hurricane is locked onto the planet’s north pole. Scientists believe it has been churning for years.
A hurricane swirls around the north pole of Saturn, in a false-color infrared image taken by the Cassini space probe at a distance of about 261,000 miles (419,000 kilometers). Clouds shown in red are closer to the surface than those shown in green. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
“We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth,” noted Cassini imaging team member Andrew Ingersoll. “But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapor in Saturn’s hydrogen atmosphere.”
Hurricanes on Earth feed off warm ocean water. But there is no body of water close to these clouds high in Saturn’s atmosphere. Scientists suggest learning how these Saturnian storms use water vapor could provide greater understanding of how hurricanes on Earth are generated and sustained.
Additional World Book articles
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Close encounters with Saturn (a special report)
- Probing the Planets (a special report)
- Space exploration 1997 (a Back in Time article)
- Space exploration 2004 (a Back in Time article)
- Space exploration 2008 (a Back in Time article)
