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Saturn's Atmosphere - New Discoveries


Waspie_Dwarf

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Saturn's Storms Run Rings Around Earth's


04.18.06

On Saturn, it may be a very long wait for the calm after a storm. As big and destructive as hurricanes on Earth can be, at least they don't last long. Not like those on Saturn, where storms may rage for months or years. Viewed from space, hurricanes on Earth and the huge atmospheric disturbances observed on Saturn look similar. But their differences are greater and offer intriguing insights into the inner workings of the ringed world being investigated by scientists on NASA's Cassini mission.

user posted image
Image above: Two Saturnian storms swirl in the region informally dubbed
"storm alley" by scientists.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
+ View details


Earth's hurricanes and Saturn's storms each have swirling clouds, convection, rain and strong rotating winds. "Hurricanes on Earth are low pressure centers at the ground and high pressures at the top where the storms flatten out," says Dr. Andrew Ingersoll, member of the Cassini imaging team and professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Storms on Saturn could be like hurricanes if what we're seeing is the top of the clouds."

The frequency of storms on Saturn seems to be about the same as on Earth, and the fraction of planet occupied by storms is also similar. Not surprisingly, since Saturn is so much larger than Earth -- nine Earths would fit across its equator--its storms are bigger. Hurricane Katrina stretched more than 380 kilometers (240 miles) across, for example, while two storms the Cassini spacecraft spotted in February 2002 each extend more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in diameter, about the size of Texas or France.

On Earth, hurricane winds can exceed 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour), similar to the speed of the jet stream, just about the fastest wind on the planet. Though spinning furiously, hurricanes travel along at a much slower pace -- eight to 32 kilometers per hour (five to 20 miles per hour). Saturn is different because its jet stream is much stronger. "Saturn's a very windy place," says Ingersoll. "The jet stream on Saturn blows ten times faster than on Earth, up to a thousand miles per hour." Saturn's winds are like conveyor belts between which storms appear to roll like ball bearings, he explains. "While we don't know the wind speeds within the storms, a good guess is that they are slower than the winds in the jet stream."

user posted image
Image above: Hurricane Isidore as viewed
from the Atmospheric Infrared
Sounding System (AIRS) on Aqua.
Credit: NASA/JPL
+ More on Aqua


What most distinguish storms on Saturn from those on Earth are the forces that drive them and physical differences between the two planets.

The heat that drives hurricanes on Earth comes from the oceans, vast reservoirs of solar energy. The oceans are also the source of moisture for convection, which draws energy from the ocean into the atmosphere and creates storm clouds and driving rainfall. Hurricanes quickly fade once they make landfall, once the plug is pulled on their power source.

The fuel for Saturn's storms is quite different. The interior of the planet acts like an ocean and stores energy, but the energy does not come from the sun. "Saturn makes it own heat, which it got when the pieces that made the planet crashed together during the violent history of the early solar system," says Ingersoll.

Saturn's atmosphere has all the ingredients necessary for hurricane-like storms including heat and water vapor, he continues, so there's no need for that first step in hurricane development where the ocean evaporates. And, without a solid surface like Earth's ocean, Saturn's storms behave very differently.

user posted image
Image above: The Dragon Storm.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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"You'd think that when two storms merge, for example, that you'd get a bigger storm," says Ingersoll, "but they seem to stay the same size. They can also split apart. They may go on forever, merging and splitting."

Scientists will be able to study Saturn's storms more closely next year, when the Cassini spacecraft tours a region in the southern hemisphere mission scientists that call storm alley.

With the exception of a few storms, like the dramatic Dragon Storm observed by the Cassini spacecraft last year, most of Saturn's storms are unnamed, unlike those on Earth. That may change, says Ingersoll, when scientists get to know them better.

Written by Rosemary Sullivant


Source: NASA - Missions - Cassini
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'Chinese Lantern' Technique Helps Track Clouds at Saturn


October 5, 2006
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

A new image of Saturn demonstrates a technique that creates a 'Chinese lantern' effect, showing Saturn's deep clouds silhouetted against the planet's warm, glowing interior. Seen this way, Saturn's interior shows surprising activity underneath the overlying haze, with a great variety of cloud shapes and sizes.

Because upper-level hazes and clouds obscure the view of these deep clouds in visible light, imaging clouds in the depths of Saturn is not practical using visible-light cameras. Several recent images obtained by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer were combined in a way that highlights the deep clouds in silhouette against the background radiation of heat generated by Saturn's interior. This literally lights the planet from the inside, like a lantern.

user posted image
The image was made with data from Cassini's
visual and infrared mapping spectrometer,
which can image the planet at 352 different
wavelengths.


Clouds and hazes in Saturn's northern hemisphere are noticeably thinner than those in its southern hemisphere. This is thought to be a seasonal effect; this idea will be tested as Saturn's northern hemisphere enters springtime in the next few years.

Bright red colors indicate areas relatively free of deep-level clouds and particles, while darker red colors are cloudy regions. Images like these show Saturn's deep clouds under both daytime and nighttime conditions.

The image, produced by team members at the University of Arizona, Tucson, is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov, and http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

A slide show featuring colorful images of Saturn and Titan is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/slideshows/cassini-200609/.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

Contacts:
Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

NEWS RELEASE: 2006-119


Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini - Press Release Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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Saturn's Silhouetted Clouds

October 6, 2006

This false-color mosaic of Saturn shows deep-level clouds silhouetted against Saturn's glowing interior. The image was made with data from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, which can image the planet at 352 different wavelengths.

This mosaic shows the entire planet, including features like Saturn's ring shadows and the terminator, the boundary between day and night.

The data were obtained in February 2006 at a distance of 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) from directly over the plane of Saturn's rings, which appear here as a thin, blue line over the equator. The image was constructed from images taken at wavelengths of 1.07 microns shown in blue, 2.71 microns shown in green, and 5.02 microns shown in red.

The blue-green color (lower right) is sunlight scattered off clouds high in Saturn's atmosphere and the red color (upper left) is the glow of thermal radiation from Saturn's warm interior, easily seen on Saturn's night side (top left), within the shadow of the rings, and with somewhat less contrast on Saturn's day side (bottom right). The darker areas within Saturn show the strongest thermal radiation. The bright red color indicates areas where Saturn's atmosphere is relatively clear. The great variety of cloud shapes and sizes reveals a surprisingly active planet below the overlying sun-scattering haze.

The brighter glow of the northern hemisphere versus the southern indicates that the clouds and hazes there are noticeably thinner than those in the south. Scientists speculate that this is a seasonal effect, and if so, it will change as the northern hemisphere enters springtime during the next few years.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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It is amazing how they can come up with ways to enhance the images. They are beautiful.

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Truely awsome pics.Just thinking of the things we humans are capable of gives me hope for my children and my childrens children. :)

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Cassini Image Shows Saturn Draped in a String of Pearls


October 11, 2006
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Saturn appears dressed to the nines, "wearing" a strand of "pearls" in a stunning infrared image from the Cassini spacecraft that showcases a meteorological phenomenon.

The image, acquired by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, shows Saturn lit by its own internal, thermal glow. Clearly visible is a 60,000-kilometer-long (37,000 miles) string of bright "pearls," which are actually clearings in Saturn's deep cloud system.

user posted image
In this image, Saturn's fascinating meteorology
manifests itself in a "string of pearls" formation,
spanning over 60,000 kilometers (37,000 miles).


The image is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov , and http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu .

The findings are being presented today at the Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Pasadena, Calif.

More than two dozen cloud clearings appear at Saturn's north latitude. Each clearing follows another at a regular spacing of about 3.5 degrees in longitude. This is the first time such a regular and extensive train of cloud clearings has been observed, indicating that they may be a result of a large planetary cloud formation or wave that might encircle the whole planet.

Scientists plan to continue observing this phenomenon over the next few years to try to learn more about Saturn's deep circulation systems and meteorology.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

Contacts:
Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

NEWS RELEASE: 2006-125


Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini - Press Release
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String of Pearls

October 11, 2006

In this image, Saturn's fascinating meteorology manifests itself in a "string of pearls" formation, spanning over 60,000 kilometers (37,000 miles).

Seen in new images acquired by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer and lit from below by Saturn's internal thermal glow, the bright "pearls" are actually clearings in Saturn's deep cloud system. More than two dozen occur at 40 degrees north latitude. Each clearing follows another at a regular spacing of some 3.5 degrees in longitude.

This is the first time such a regular and extensive train of cloud-clearings has been observed. The regularity indicates that they may be a manifestation of a large planetary wave. Scientists plan to take more observations of this phenomenon over the next few years to try to understand Saturn's deep circulation systems and meteorology. This image was taken on April 27, 2006.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.n...dId=space_rss20

The 'string of pearls' that have been observed in Saturns Atmosphere is an indication to scientists, that the planet atmosphere is more active then anticipated. Essentially they are gaps in the cloud formations in the northern hemisphere caused by active regularly spaced downdrafts.

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http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.n...dId=space_rss20

The 'string of pearls' that have been observed in Saturns Atmosphere is an indication to scientists, that the planet atmosphere is more active then anticipated. Essentially they are gaps in the cloud formations in the northern hemisphere caused by active regularly spaced downdrafts.

dot dot dot

I... Can't comment .... just no.. so so very wrong.

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Space pictures never cease to amaze me. They are always so beautiful. It has taken Saturn long enough to show that it isn't always the peaceful, calm place scientist believed it to be.

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I... Can't comment .... just no.. so so very wrong.

:lol: I guess God has a special flare for Saturn.

I wonder why the guy said Saturn isn't boring anymore. Was it boring before? :blink: I didn't think so... :unsure:

Edited by __Kratos__
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maybe you should change the title lol

saturn is a cool planet it was boring

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NASA Sees into the Eye of a Monster Storm on Saturn


November 9, 2006
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has seen something never before seen on another planet -- a hurricane-like storm at Saturn's south pole with a well-developed eye, ringed by towering clouds.

The "hurricane" spans a dark area inside a thick, brighter ring of clouds. It is approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across, or two thirds the diameter of Earth.

IPB Image
This 14-frame movie shows a swirling cloud
mass centered on the south pole, around which
winds blow at 550 kilometers (350 miles) per
hour.
+ View Movie


"It looks like a hurricane, but it doesn't behave like a hurricane," said Dr. Andrew Ingersoll, a member of Cassini's imaging team at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Whatever it is, we're going to focus on the eye of this storm and find out why it's there."

A movie taken by Cassini's camera over a three-hour period reveals winds around Saturn's south pole blowing clockwise at 550 kilometers (350 miles) per hour. The camera also saw the shadow cast by a ring of towering clouds surrounding the pole, and two spiral arms of clouds extending from the central ring. These ring clouds, 30 to 75 kilometers (20 to 45 miles) above those in the center of the storm, are two to five times taller than the clouds of thunderstorms and hurricanes on Earth.

Eye-wall clouds are a distinguishing feature of hurricanes on Earth. They form where moist air flows inward across the ocean's surface, rising vertically and releasing a heavy rain around an interior circle of descending air that is the eye of the storm itself. Though it is uncertain whether such moist convection is driving Saturn's storm, the dark "eye" at the pole, the eye-wall clouds and the spiral arms together indicate a hurricane-like system.

IPB Image
These images of Saturn's south pole, taken
by two different instruments, show the
hurricane-like storm swirling there and
features in the clouds at various depths
surrounding the pole.


Distinctive eye-wall clouds had not been seen on any planet other than Earth. Even Jupiter's Great Red Spot, much larger than Saturn's polar storm, has no eye or eye-wall and is relatively calm at the center.

This giant Saturnian storm is apparently different fromhurricanes on Earth because it is locked to the pole and does not drift around. Also, since Saturn is a gaseous planet, the storm forms without an ocean at its base.

In the Cassini imagery, the eye looks dark at infrared wavelengths where methane gas absorbs the light and only the highest clouds are visible.

"The clear skies over the eye appear to extend down to a level about twice as deep as the usual cloud level observed on Saturn," said Dr. Kevin H. Baines of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This gives us the deepest view yet into Saturn over a wide range of wavelengths, and reveals a mysterious set of dark clouds at the bottom of the eye."

Infrared images taken by the Keck I telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, had previously shown Saturn's south pole to be warm. Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer has confirmed this with higher-resolution temperature maps of the area. The spectrometer observed a temperature increase of about 2 Kelvin (4 degrees Fahrenheit) at the pole. The instrument measured high temperatures in the upper troposphere and stratosphere, regions higher in the atmosphere than the clouds seen by the Cassini imaging instruments.

IPB Image
This view shows temperature data from the
composite infrared spectrometer overlaid
onto an image from the imaging science
subsystem wide-angle camera.


"The winds decrease with height, and the atmosphere is sinking, compressing and heating over the South Pole," said Dr. Richard Achterberg, a member of Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer team at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Observations taken over the next few years, as the south pole season changes from summer to fall, will help scientists understand the role seasons play in driving the dramatic meteorology at the south pole of Saturn.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASAΒΏs Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at Goddard.

For a movie, high-resolution images, infrared images and Saturn temperature maps, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, and http://ciclops.org.

Contacts:
Carolina Martinez (818) 354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Erica Hupp/Dwayne Brown (202) 358-1237/1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington

Preston Dyches (720) 974-5859
Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.


Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini - Press Release
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Saturn's Surprisingly Stormy South

November 9, 2006

These images of Saturn's south pole, taken by two different instruments on Cassini, show the hurricane-like storm swirling there and features in the clouds at various depths surrounding the pole. Different wavelengths reveal the height of the clouds, which span tens of kilometers in altitude.

The four monochrome images displayed here were acquired by the imaging science subsystem; the blue and red images in the bottom row were taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. The images are arranged in order of increasing wavelength in nanometers as follows: (top row) 460 nm, 752 nm, 728 nm; (bottom row) 890 nm, 2,800 nm, 5,000 nm.

At the center of the cauldron of storms spinning around the south pole is the south pole itself, which literally appears to be the eye of this vast polar storm system. As in a hurricane on Earth, the south polar "eye" is relatively clear of clouds and is surrounded by a wall of towering clouds that cast shadows into the center. However, while morphologically similar, it is not clear if this vortex operates in the same fashion as a terrestrial hurricane. In most of the images, the center of the polar storm is quite dark, indicating an unusually cloud-free atmosphere in the upper skies, which are otherwise typically inhabited by bright ammonia clouds. This polar hole in the ammonia cloud layer represents the eye of the hurricane-like storm. Unusually dark clouds likely exist at the bottom of this deep hole, enhancing the murkiness there.

The first image in this montage (at upper left) shows a muted eye, due to the enhanced scattering of light from the atmosphere itself at this blue wavelength (460 nanometers), just as in the blue skies of Earth. In the last image at bottom right, the eye appears relatively bright. This image is taken at a wavelength of 5,000 nanometers, where the dominant source of light is the thermal glow of the planet itself. The bright thermal glow seen in this polar hole again shows that the eye is relatively cloud-free to unusual depths.

In the imaging science subsystem images, the eye looks dark at wavelengths where methane gas absorbs the light (728 nanometers and 890 nanometers, at upper right and lower left) and only the highest clouds are visible, confirming that the clouds within the eye are deeper than their surroundings. This effect is also seen in visual and infrared mapping spectrometer images that show gas absorption.

In the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer image taken at 2,800 nanometers, four times the wavelength of light visible to the human eye, this cloud clearing appears dark, which is consistent with the idea that the atmosphere above any distinct clouds is unusually deep there. The eye is some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) across, and is surrounded by a distinct ring of clouds some 300 kilometers (185 miles) across. The images also indicate the prevalence of smaller but vertically well-developed storms across the entire south polar region, indicating the extent to which convection characterizes the area.

Literally hundreds of storm clouds encircle the pole, appearing as dark spots in the infrared spectrometer thermal image (red image) and as both bright and dark spots in images taken in sunlight (blue image). Each of these spots represents a storm. These pictures reveal that Saturn's south pole is a cauldron of storm activity, unlike anything ever seen on any planet.

The individual storms surrounding the pole are seen as dark "leopard spots" in the thermal image (red) taken at a wavelength of 5,000 nanometers, some seven times the wavelength of light visible to the human eye. Here, these spots are blocking the thermal light, or heat, from the interior of Saturn. The storm clouds are thus seen in silhouette against Saturn's thermal glow. The effectiveness of these clouds in blocking Saturn's interior thermal glow indicates that the storm clouds are unusually thick, extending deep down into Saturn's atmosphere, and are comprised of relatively large cloud particles, likely condensates formed in upwelling air currents.

The large number of dark, circular leopard spots at the south pole seen at 5,000 nanometer wavelength, and their correlation with the features seen in sunlight at 2,800 nanometer wavelength, indicates that convective activity extending over dozens of kilometers in altitude is surprisingly rampant in the south polar region. Why such unusual dynamics exist there is perhaps linked to Saturn's southern summer, which is the season Saturn is in now. Observations taken over the next few years, as the south pole season changes from summer to fall, will help scientists understand the role seasons play in driving the dramatic meteorology at the south pole of Saturn. The images in this montage were acquired on Oct. 11, 2006, when Cassini was approximately 340,000 kilometers (210,000 miles) from Saturn. The original imaging science subsystem images have a scale of about 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The visual and infrared spectrometer images have a scale of about 174 kilometers (108 miles) per pixel. The images have been resized to approximately the same scale for presentation here.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona where this image was produced.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu . .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/University of Arizona

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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The Hole at the Pole

November 9, 2006

The Cassini data presented in this view appear to confirm a region of warm atmospheric descent into the eye of a hurricane-like storm locked to Saturn's south pole. The view shows temperature data from the Cassini spacecraft composite infrared spectrometer overlaid onto an image from the imaging science subsystem wide-angle camera.

The composite infrared spectrometer data refer to a depth in Saturn's upper stratosphere where the pressure is 0.5 millibars (324 kilometers above the 1-bar level), a region higher than that imaged by the imaging camera and visual and infrared spectrometer during the same observation period. The composite infrared spectrometer data show a very small hot spot over the pole, similar in size to the "eye" of the storm seen in the imaging science subsystem images. See also Looking Saturn in the Eye and Saturn's Surprisingly Stormy South for related images.

The color scale at the bottom indicates the temperature in Kelvin corresponding to the colors of the temperature map. Numbers on the grid correspond to lines of latitude and longitude on the planet.

Infrared images taken through the Keck I telescope by ground-based observers had previously shown the south polar spot to be warm. Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer has confirmed this with higher resolution temperature maps of the area (like the map displayed here) and sees a temperature increase of about 2 Kelvin (4 degrees Fahrenheit) at the pole.

The temperatures are in the stratosphere and higher up than the clouds seen by the Cassini imaging and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instruments, but they suggest that the atmosphere sinks over the south pole. Because the pressure increases with depth, the descending atmosphere compresses and heats up. The warmer temperatures over the south pole also indicate that the vortex winds are decaying with height in the stratosphere. The descent implied by the temperatures nicely supports the lower cloud altitudes observed by the imaging camera and visual and infrared spectrometer instruments at the pole.

The image and atmospheric data were acquired on Oct. 11, 2006, when Cassini was approximately 340,000 kilometers (210,000 miles) from Saturn. The wide-angle camera image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The image has been contrast enhanced using digital image processing techniques. The unprocessed image shows an oblique view toward the pole, and was reprojected to show the planet from a perspective directly over the south pole. Scale in the original image was about 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . The composite infrared spectrometer team homepage is at http://cirs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/GSFC

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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Looking Saturn in the Eye

November 9, 2006

+ View Movie

Cassini stares deep into the swirling hurricane-like vortex at Saturn's south pole, where the vertical structure of the clouds is highlighted by shadows. Such a storm, with a well-developed eye ringed by towering clouds, is a phenomenon never before seen on another planet.

This 14-frame movie shows a swirling cloud mass centered on the south pole, around which winds blow at 550 kilometers (350 miles) per hour. The frames have been aligned to make the planet appear stationary, while the sun appears to revolve about the pole in a counterclockwise direction. The clouds inside the dark, inner circle are lower than the surrounding clouds, which cast a shadow that follows the sun.

At the beginning of the movie, the sun illuminates directly from the top, and by the end it illuminates from the left. The width of the shadow and the height of the sun above the local horizon yield a crude estimate of the height of the surrounding clouds relative to the clouds in the center. The shadow-casting clouds tower 30 to 75 kilometers (20 to 45 miles) above those in the center. This is two to five times greater than the tallest terrestrial thunderstorms and two to five times the height of clouds surrounding the eye of a terrestrial hurricane. Such a height difference arises because Saturn's hydrogen-helium atmosphere is less dense at comparable pressures than Earth's atmosphere, and is therefore more distended in the vertical dimension.

The south polar storm, which displays two spiral arms of clouds extending from the central ring and spans the dark area inside a thick, brighter ring of clouds, is approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across, which is considerably larger than a terrestrial hurricane.

Eye-wall clouds are a distinguishing feature of hurricanes on Earth. They form where moist air flows inward across the ocean's surface, rising vertically and releasing a load of precipitation around an interior circular region of descending air, which is the eye itself.

Though it is uncertain whether moist convection is driving this storm, as is the case with Earthly hurricanes, the dark 'eye' at the pole, the eye-wall clouds and the spiral arms together indicate a hurricane-like system. The distinctive eye-wall clouds especially have not been seen on any planet beyond Earth. Even Jupiter's Great Red Spot, much larger than Saturn's polar storm, has no eye, no eye-wall, and is relatively calm at the center.

This giant Saturnian storm is apparently different from hurricanes on Earth because it is locked to the pole, does not drift around like terrestrial hurricanes and because it does not form over liquid water oceans.

The images were acquired over a period of three hours on Oct. 11, 2006, when Cassini was approximately 340,000 kilometers (210,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is about 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The images were taken with the wide-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. All frames have been contrast enhanced using digital image processing techniques. The unprocessed images show an oblique view toward the pole, and have been reprojected to show the planet from a perspective directly over the south pole.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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  • 4 months later...
Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn


March 27, 2007
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Pasadena, Calif. -- An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with NASA's Cassini mission.

NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged the feature over two decades ago. The fact that it has appeared in Cassini images indicates that it is a long-lived feature. A second hexagon, significantly darker than the brighter historical feature, is also visible in the Cassini pictures. The spacecraft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is the first instrument to capture the entire hexagon feature in one image.

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Saturn's Active North Pole

"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

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Saturn's North Pole Hexagon and Aurora

The hexagon is similar to Earth's polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 25,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it.

The new images taken in thermal-infrared light show the hexagon extends much deeper down into the atmosphere than previously expected, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) below the cloud tops. A system of clouds lies within the hexagon. The clouds appear to be whipping around the hexagon like cars on a racetrack.

"It's amazing to see such striking differences on opposite ends of Saturn's poles," said Bob Brown, team leader of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, University of Arizona, Tucson. "At the south pole we have what appears to be a hurricane with a giant eye, and at the north pole of Saturn we have this geometric feature, which is completely different."

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Saturn's Strange Hexagon

The Saturn north pole hexagon has not been visible to Cassini's visual cameras, because it's winter in that area, so the hexagon is under the cover of the long polar night, which lasts about 15 years. The infrared mapping spectrometer can image Saturn in both daytime and nighttime conditions and see deep inside. It imaged the feature with thermal wavelengths near 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the human eye) during a 12-day period beginning on Oct. 30, 2006. As winter wanes over the next two years, the feature may become visible to the visual cameras.

Based on the new images and more information on the depth of the feature, scientists think it is not linked to Saturn's radio emissions or to auroral activity, as once contemplated, even though Saturn's northern aurora lies nearly overhead.

The hexagon appears to have remained fixed with Saturn's rotation rate and axis since first glimpsed by Voyager 26 years ago. The actual rotation rate of Saturn is still uncertain.

"Once we understand its dynamical nature, this long-lived, deep-seated polar hexagon may give us a clue to the true rotation rate of the deep atmosphere and perhaps the interior," added Baines.

The hexagon images and movie, including the north polar auroras are available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona.

Contacts:
Carolina Martinez/Jane Platt 818-354-9382/818-354-0880
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

NEWS RELEASE: 2007-034


Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini - News Release
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Saturn's North Pole Hexagon and Aurora

March 27, 2007

This nighttime view of Saturn's north pole by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini orbiter reveals a dynamic, active planet at least 75 kilometers (47 miles) below the normal cloud tops seen in visible light. Clearly revealed is the bizarre six-sided hexagon feature present at the north pole.

This image is one of the first clear images of the north polar region ever acquired from a unique polar perspective. In this image, the blue color shows high-altitude emissions from atmospheric molecules excited by charged particles smashing into the atmosphere along Saturn's powerful magnetic field lines, producing the aurora at very high altitudes in Saturn's atmosphere. The red color indicates the amount of 5-micron wavelength radiation, or heat, generated in the depths of the warm interior of Saturn that escapes the planet. Clouds blocking this light are revealed as silhouettes against the background thermal glow of the planet.

This image is among the first to capture the entire hexagonal feature and north polar region in one shot. It is also one of the first polar views using Saturn's thermal glow at 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the human eye) as the light source. This allows polar cloud features to be revealed during the persistent nighttime conditions under way during north polar winter.

The hexagonal feature was originally discovered by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1980, but those images and subsequent ground-based telescope images suffered from poor viewing perspectives, which placed the feature and the north pole at the extreme northern limb (edge) in those images.

The strong brightness of the hexagon feature indicates that it is primarily a clearing in the clouds, which extends deep into the atmosphere, at least down to the 3-bar (3-Earth atmospheres pressure) level, about 75 kilometers (47 miles) below the clouds and hazes seen in visible wavelengths. Thick clouds border both sides of the narrow feature, as indicated by the adjacent dark lanes paralleling the bright hexagon. This image and other images acquired over a 12-day period between Oct. 30 and Nov. 11, 2006, show that the feature is nearly stationary, and likely is an unusually strong pole-encircling planetary wave that extends deep into the atmosphere.

This image was acquired by the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on Oct. 29, 2006, from an average distance of 905,000 kilometers (562,340 miles) above the clouds.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, where this image was produced.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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Saturn's Strange Hexagon

March 27, 2007

This nighttime view of Saturn's north pole by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer onboard NASA's Cassini orbiter clearly shows a bizarre six-sided hexagon feature encircling the entire north pole. This is one of the first clear images taken of the north polar region ever acquired from a unique polar perspective.

In this image, the red color indicates the amount of 5-micron wavelength radiation, or heat, generated in the warm interior of Saturn that escapes the planet. Clouds near 3-bar (about 100 kilometers or 62 miles deeper than seen in visible wavelengths) block the light, revealing them in silhouette against the background thermal glow of Saturn. The bluish color shows sunlight striking the far limb (edge) of the planet, showing that the entire north pole is under the nighttime conditions characteristic of polar winter, as on Earth.

This image is the first to capture the entire feature and north polar region in one shot, and is also the first polar view using Saturn's thermal glow at 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the human eye) as the light source. This allows the pole to be revealed during the persistent nighttime conditions under way during winter. The hexagon feature was originally discovered by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1980, but those historic images and subsequent ground-based telescope images suffered from poor viewing perspectives, which placed the feature and the north pole at the extreme northern limb (edge) in those images.

In the new infrared images, the strong brightness of the hexagon feature indicates that it is primarily a clearing in the clouds, which extends deep into the atmosphere, at least some 75 kilometers (47 miles) underneath the typical upper hazes and clouds seen in the daytime imagery by Voyager. Thick clouds border both sides of the narrow feature, as indicated by the adjacent dark lanes paralleling the bright hexagon. This and other images acquired over a 12-day period between Oct. 30 and Nov. 11, 2006, show that the feature is nearly stationary, and likely is an unusually strong pole-encircling planetary wave that extends deep into the atmosphere.

This image was acquired with the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on Oct. 30, 2006, from an average distance of 1.3 million kilometers (807,782 miles).

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, where this image was produced.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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Saturn's Active North Pole

March 27, 2007

A bizarre six-sided feature encircling the north pole of Saturn near 78 degrees north latitude has been spied by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This image is one of the first clear images ever taken of the north polar region as seen from a unique polar perspective.

Originally discovered and last observed by a spacecraft during NASA's Voyager flybys of the early 1980's, the new views of this polar hexagon taken in late 2006 prove that this is an unusually long-lived feature on Saturn.

This image is the first to capture the entire feature and north polar region in one shot, and is also the first polar view using Saturn's thermal glow at 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the human eye) as the light source. This allows the pole to be revealed during the nighttime conditions presently underway during north polar winter. Previous images from Voyager and from ground-based telescopes suffered from poor viewing perspectives, which placed the feature and the north pole at the extreme northern limb (edge) of the planet.

To see the deep atmosphere at night, the infrared instrument images the thermal glow radiating from SaturnΒΏs depths. Clouds at depths about 75 kilometers (47 miles) lower than the clouds seen at visible wavelengths block this light, appearing dark in silhouette. To show clouds as features that are bright or white rather than dark, the original image has been contrast reversed to produce the image shown here. The nested set of alternating white and dark hexagons indicates that the hexagonal complex extends deep into the atmosphere, at least down to the 3-Earth-atmosphere pressure level, some 75 kilometers (47 miles) underneath the clouds seen by Voyager. Multiple images acquired over a 12-day period between Oct. 30 and Nov. 11, 2006, show that the feature is nearly stationary, and likely is an unusually strong pole-encircling planetary wave that extends deep into the atmosphere.

This image was acquired on Oct. 29, 2006, from an average distance of 902,000 kilometers (560,400 miles) above the cloud tops of Saturn.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, where this image was produced.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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Saturn's Strange Hexagon


This nighttime view of Saturn's north pole by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer onboard NASA's Cassini orbiter clearly shows a bizarre six-sided hexagon feature encircling the entire north pole. This is one of the first clear images taken of the north polar region ever acquired from a unique polar perspective.

In this image, the red color indicates the amount of 5-micron wavelength radiation, or heat, generated in the warm interior of Saturn that escapes the planet. Clouds near 3-bar (about 100 kilometers or 62 miles deeper than seen in visible wavelengths) block the light, revealing them in silhouette against the background thermal glow of Saturn. The bluish color shows sunlight striking the far limb (edge) of the planet, showing that the entire north pole is under the nighttime conditions characteristic of polar winter, as on Earth.

This image is the first to capture the entire feature and north polar region in one shot, and is also the first polar view using Saturn's thermal glow at 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the human eye) as the light source. This allows the pole to be revealed during the persistent nighttime conditions under way during winter. The hexagon feature was originally discovered by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1980, but those historic images and subsequent ground-based telescope images suffered from poor viewing perspectives, which placed the feature and the north pole at the extreme northern limb (edge) in those images.

In the new infrared images, the strong brightness of the hexagon feature indicates that it is primarily a clearing in the clouds, which extends deep into the atmosphere, at least some 75 kilometers (47 miles) underneath the typical upper hazes and clouds seen in the daytime imagery by Voyager. Thick clouds border both sides of the narrow feature, as indicated by the adjacent dark lanes paralleling the bright hexagon. This and other images acquired over a 12-day period between Oct. 30 and Nov. 11, 2006, show that the feature is nearly stationary, and likely is an unusually strong pole-encircling planetary wave that extends deep into the atmosphere.

This image was acquired with the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on Oct. 30, 2006, from an average distance of 1.3 million kilometers (807,782 miles).

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, where this image was produced.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini
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  • 1 month later...
Cassini Finds that Storms Power Saturn's Jet Streams


New Cassini research suggests eddies, or giant rotating storms, are the "engine" powering Saturn's jet stream winds.

"The new information about how Saturn's jet streams are powered is exactly the opposite of what we thought prior to Cassini," said Anthony Del Genio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y. Del Genio is a Cassini imaging team member and lead author of a paper describing this research in press in the journal Icarus.

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Image above: The image shows small-scale, sheared-out cloud features
associated with turbulent eddies in the vicinity of one of Saturn's eastward
flowing jet streams, or "jets."
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute


Jet streams are motions in an atmosphere that carry clouds rapidly eastward or westward. The eddies get fed into the jet streams, in much the same way that rotating gears can power a conveyor belt.

"While we thought the conveyor belt--in this case, the jet streams--powered the rotating eddies, we now think the opposite: the rotating eddies power the jet streams," said Del Genio.

"Intuition would say that the eddies take energy out of the jets, because of the friction and tugging of the storms. Instead, what we find is that they are pumping energy into the jets," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member with the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. Ingersoll says that while this process has been known to occur on Earth, it was only recently shown to operate on Jupiter and is a new idea for Saturn, where data from the earlier Voyager missions had failed to detect the eddy-jet interactions.

The Cassini team analyzed, for the first time, how storms and eddies interact with Saturn's jet streams. By tracking the movements of these cloud features in successive images separated by about 10 hours (about one Saturn rotation), Cassini scientists have confirmed that the eddies on either side of the jet give up their energy and momentum, which helps keep the winds in the jet blowing.

"We knew the eddies were powering the jets because they were pointing in the same direction and carrying momentum in that direction. If the eddies had been tapering the other way, we would have concluded the opposite," added Ingersoll.

The analysis of Cassini images covering most of Saturn's southern hemisphere suggests that similar processes are occurring all over the planet. This explains why Saturn's alternating pattern of eastward and westward jets has remained constant over most of the planet during the many decades that scientists have been able to observe it. The same process was also recently found to occur on Jupiter, in data obtained when Cassini flew by that planet on its way to Saturn. The process is a well known feature on Earth in the two jet streams that circle the globe in the northern and southern hemisphere.

The findings suggest that traditional ideas about the banded clouds of Jupiter and Saturn need to be revised.

"We used to assume that the bright cloud bands are regions where air rises and the dark bands are where air sinks. But if the eddies power the jets in the way we observe, the opposite must be true," said Del Genio. "And indeed, we find thunderstorms only in the dark bands on both planets, which has to mean that the air is rising there."

An image from the study, showing cloud features near one of Saturn's jet streams, is available at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://ciclops.org . The paper is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute.


Media contact: Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Preston Dyches 720-974-5859
Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

2007-053


Source: NASA - Cassini - News Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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Powering Saturn's Jets (with labels)

May 8, 2007

Using images like the one presented here, Cassini imaging scientists have made a major finding about the mechanism powering the general circulation of Saturn.

The image shows small-scale, sheared-out cloud features associated with turbulent eddies in the vicinity of one of Saturn's eastward flowing jet streams, or "jets."

The jet itself, located at 27.5 degrees south latitude, is indicated by the large horizontal arrow. Winds in this jet have blown continuously at speeds close to 320 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour) for as long as scientists have observed Saturn.

By tracking the movements of these cloud features in successive images separated by about 10 hours (about one Saturn rotation), Cassini scientists have confirmed that the eddies on either side of the jet give up their energy and momentum to help keep the winds in the jet blowing.

The tilted arrows indicate the direction in which the eddies move the energy and momentum that power the jet. The winds that accomplish this are so strong that they combine to stretch out the eddies into bright, tilted streaks that are visible here, parallel to the arrows.

The analysis of Cassini images covering most of Saturn's southern hemisphere suggests that similar processes occurring all over Saturn explain the remarkable decades-long stability of its alternating pattern of eastward and westward jets. The same process also occurs on Jupiter, and on Earth in the storm track along the east coast of the United States.

Prior to this discovery, it was thought that the jets on Saturn and Jupiter were powered by an entirely different process, analogous to the tropical circulation on Earth. But now it appears that a comparison to the atmospheric motions in the Earth's mid-latitudes is more appropriate.

The eddies seen in this image also create circulation patterns of upward and downward motion (in altitude) at different latitudes that help explain the general banded structure of global cloud patterns on the Jovian planets.

The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 750 nanometers. The view was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 3.4 million kilometers (2.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 20 kilometers (12 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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Powering Saturn's Jets (without labels)

May 8, 2007

Using images like the one presented here, Cassini imaging scientists have made a major finding about the mechanism powering the general circulation of Saturn.

The image shows small-scale, sheared-out cloud features associated with turbulent eddies in the vicinity of one of Saturn's eastward flowing jet streams, or "jets."

The jet itself, located at 27.5 degrees south latitude, is indicated by the large horizontal arrow. Winds in this jet have blown continuously at speeds close to 320 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour) for as long as scientists have observed Saturn.

By tracking the movements of these cloud features in successive images separated by about 10 hours (about one Saturn rotation), Cassini scientists have confirmed that the eddies on either side of the jet give up their energy and momentum to help keep the winds in the jet blowing.

The tilted arrows indicate the direction in which the eddies move the energy and momentum that power the jet. The winds that accomplish this are so strong that they combine to stretch out the eddies into bright, tilted streaks that are visible here, parallel to the arrows.

The analysis of Cassini images covering most of Saturn's southern hemisphere suggests that similar processes occurring all over Saturn explain the remarkable decades-long stability of its alternating pattern of eastward and westward jets. The same process also occurs on Jupiter, and on Earth in the storm track along the east coast of the United States.

Prior to this discovery, it was thought that the jets on Saturn and Jupiter were powered by an entirely different process, analogous to the tropical circulation on Earth. But now it appears that a comparison to the atmospheric motions in the Earth's mid-latitudes is more appropriate.

The eddies seen in this image also create circulation patterns of upward and downward motion (in altitude) at different latitudes that help explain the general banded structure of global cloud patterns on the Jovian planets.

A labeled version of the image is presented here as well.

The image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 750 nanometers. The view was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 3.4 million kilometers (2.1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 20 kilometers (12 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini

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  • 7 months later...
Hot Cyclones Churn at Both Ends of Saturn


January 3, 2008
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Despite more than a decade of winter darkness, Saturn's north pole is home to an unexpected hot spot remarkably similar to one at the planet's sunny south pole. The source of its heat is a mystery. Now, the first detailed views of the gas giant's high latitudes from the Cassini spacecraft reveal a matched set of hot cyclonic vortices, one at each pole.

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This image shows newly discovered "hot spot"
on Saturn's north pole and the mysterious
hexagon that encircles the pole. The "hot spot"
appears to be related to Saturn's dynamic
weather systems, rather than to seasonal
changes in the amount of sunlight at the pole.

Credit:NASA/JPL/GSFC/Oxford University


While scientists already knew about the hot spot at Saturn's south pole from previous observations by the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the north pole vortex was a surprise. The researchers report their findings in the Jan. 4 issue of Science.

"We had speculated that the south pole hot spot was connected to the southern, sunlit conditions," said Glenn Orton, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and co-investigator on Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer. "Since the north pole has been deprived of sunlight since the arrival of winter in 1995, we didn't expect to find a similar feature there."

The infrared data show that the shadowed north pole vortex shares much the same structure and temperature as the one at the sunny south pole. The cores of both show a depletion of phospine gas, an imbalance probably caused by air moving downward into the lowest part of Saturn's atmosphere, the troposphere. Both polar vortices appear to be long-lasting and intrinsic parts of Saturn and are not related to the amount of sunlight received by one pole or the other.

"The hot spots are the result of air moving polewards, being compressed and heated up as it descends over the poles into the depths of Saturn," said Leigh Fletcher, a planetary scientist from the University of Oxford, England, and the lead author of the Science paper. "The driving forces behind the motion, and indeed the global motion of Saturn's atmosphere, still need to be understood."

Though similar, the two polar regions differ in one striking way. At the north pole, the newly discovered vortex is framed by the distinctive, long-lived and still unexplained polar hexagon. This mysterious feature encompassing the entire north pole was first spotted in the 1980s by NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. Cassini's infrared cameras also detected the hexagon in deep atmospheric clouds early in 2007.

In their paper, Fletcher and his colleagues report that the bright, warm hexagon is much higher than previous studies had shown. "It extends right to the top of the troposphere," says Fletcher. "It is associated with downward motion in the troposphere, though the cause of the hexagonal structure requires further study."

Winter lasts about 15 years on Saturn. Researchers anticipate that when the seasons change in the coming years and Saturn's north pole is once again in sunlight, they will be able to see a swirling vortex with high eye walls and dark central clouds like the one now visible at the south pole. "But Saturn may surprise us again," says Fletcher.

"The fact that Neptune shows a similar south polar hot spot whets our appetite for the strange dynamics of the poles of the other gas giants," Fletcher says.

More information about Jupiter's poles will come from NASA's Juno mission, currently scheduled for launch in 2011 and arrival in 2016.

FletcherΒΏs research was funded by the United Kingdom's Science and Technology Facilities Council.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The science team for Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Contacts:
Rosemary Sullivant/Carolina Martinez 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.


NEWS RELEASE: 2008-001

Source: NASA/JPL - Cassini - Press Release
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