Monster storm on Saturn Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

http://ciclops.org/view_event.php?id=57

A hurricane-like whirlpool with a well-developed eye ringed by towering clouds, a phenomenon never before seen on another planet, has been sighted by multiple Cassini instruments at Saturn's south pole.

[edstrick]

The Voyager data, when processed into polar stereographic or some such projection, revealed a hexagonal wave-belt/zone pattern at something like 82 or 85 deg north, surrounding the pole. There was a short paper on it, in Nature or perhaps Geophysical Research Letters or the like. Whether there was a more detailed and numeric study of the atmosphere dynamics of a stable periodic wave structure at that latitude, I don't know. I've been wondering if there was the same at the south pole.... uh... guess not!

[Bjorn Jonsson]

The Voyager data, when processed into polar stereographic or some such projection, revealed a hexagonal wave-belt/zone pattern at something like 82 or 85 deg north, surrounding the pole. There was a short paper on it, in Nature or perhaps Geophysical Research Letters or the like. Whether there was a more detailed and numeric study of the atmosphere dynamics of a stable periodic wave structure at that latitude, I don't know. I've been wondering if there was the same at the south pole.... uh... guess not!

It's been known for some time (10 or even close to 15 years) from Hubble images that there is no hexagon near the south pole. This rendering (which BTW needs to be updated) I did a few years ago shows the northern hexagon fairly well.