Looking deep into a huge storm on Saturn
Thursday, May 19, 2011 - 14:30
in Astronomy & Space
The atmosphere of the planet Saturn normally appears placid and calm. But about once per Saturn year (about thirty Earth years), as spring comes to the northern hemisphere of the giant planet, something stirs deep below the clouds that leads to a dramatic planet-wide disturbance. This is only the sixth of these huge storms to be spotted since 1876. It is the first ever to be studied in the thermal infrared -- to see the variations of temperature within a Saturnian storm -- and the first ever to be observed by an orbiting spacecraft.