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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Saturn _ Monster storm on Saturn
Posted by: Sunspot Nov 9 2006, 07:09 PM
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.
Posted by: marsman Nov 9 2006, 11:14 PM
Remarkable! Cassini has done it again. The large number of spotted white clouds adds additional splendor. Given its location at the South Pole, how would the planet's rotation affect the circular direction of the storm?
Posted by: craigmcg Nov 14 2006, 12:56 AM
Some more interesting facts form the Ciclops site:
... winds blow at 550 kilometers (350 miles) per hour
.... clouds tower 30 to 75 kilometers (20 to 45 miles) above those in the center
... is approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across
Posted by: nprev Nov 14 2006, 02:05 AM
Definitely gives you a feel for just how deep the atmospheres of the Jovian planets really are...amazing. Does this appear to be a relatively permanent feature, like a whirlpool?
Posted by: edstrick Nov 14 2006, 10:09 AM
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!
Posted by: ugordan Nov 14 2006, 01:04 PM
A humorous writeup on Uncyclopedia.org about the hurricane on Saturn:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:NASA_chief_Michael_Griffin_resigns_over_handling_of_Saturn_hurricane
Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson Nov 14 2006, 03:11 PM
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. http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/planet_rend/saturn_npole.jpg (which BTW needs to be updated) I did a few years ago shows the northern hexagon fairly well.
Posted by: scalbers Nov 16 2006, 06:52 PM
I wonder if the spotted clouds could be made of water?
Posted by: antipode Dec 14 2006, 10:13 PM
Next time we venture out to Saturn, how feasible would a direct entry probe into the south polar vortex be? I'm thinking something on a chute, or even a blimp, that could sense the environment over, and within, the vortex, and survive until a considerable crush depth. Think of the 'interior' images it could return of the eyewall dymanics if it was fairly longlived!
Okay - I can think of some pretty major challenges for a probe like this - especially getting data back to earth at reasonable bandwidth (polar orbiter?). However I'd like some experts/insiders to comment. Is the south polar vortex a potential realistic target of interest? The interest applies not just to Saturn, but to Venus, what happens under the polar dark hoods of Mars, and even to what we might one day find at the poles of Uranus and Neptune.
P
Posted by: edstrick Dec 15 2006, 11:05 AM
The vortex would be a *BAD* place to go for a probe trying to answer the big questions about deep atmospheric composition. Like the 'blue hot spot' on Jupiter that the Galileo probe accidentally descended into, the vortex is a down-welling zone of clear, dry air, equivalent to a high pressure airmass on earth's surface. The descending air has been "wrung out" of water and other condensible vapors and is not chemically representative of the deep interior, the way rising air coming up from great depth under a cloud deck would be.
Posted by: antipode Dec 15 2006, 01:13 PM
Good point. I had my 'pixel porn' goggles on. 
Seen too many videos of flights through *Earthly* Hurricane eyewalls I guess...
P
Posted by: ugordan Oct 27 2007, 01:35 PM
To complement http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=2285, here's what the south vortex looks like in approx. natural color, courtesy of the VIMS instrument:
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n15/ugordan/vortex.gif
The view was slightly sharpened to bring out features and magnified 4x.
Click above image for a short flyover animation.
Posted by: mchan Oct 27 2007, 11:05 PM
Good image. Ditto the animation. I am guessing the animation sequence was in chronological order. I imagine the effect may be a little more dramatic if the sequence were in reverse order.
Posted by: ugordan Jul 17 2008, 09:36 AM
There's a nice new http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=161577 of the south polar vortex, including some RGB data. I tried to composite it to get an approx. natural color shot, despite the large contrast stretch applied to raw images. I based the color balance on the above VIMS view. I think the cloud ring visible in the NAC view is the innermost one in the VIMS view.
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n15/ugordan/south_vortex.jpg
Click image to enlarge. The contrast is probably still a bit too high, but I didn't want to wash out all detail.
Posted by: jasedm Jul 17 2008, 09:45 AM
Beautiful image - might this be a candidate for the end-of-mission plunge? (after the XXM and XXXM of course!)
Posted by: Juramike Jul 17 2008, 12:13 PM
Beautiful work, Gordan!
Posted by: JRehling Jul 17 2008, 08:51 PM
That is the scariest picture I've seen from anywhere in the solar system (besides Earth).
Posted by: belleraphon1 Jul 19 2008, 08:08 PM
Yes UGORDAN... thanks indeed...
Driving home from work these past few days, I see all these wonderful afternoon cumulus clouds gracing the Ohio sky.
My mind wanders to Saturn skies..... the perpetual puffs of cumuli, roiling from the internal furnace below... what a joy it would be to fly a plane through those, and then find oneself over that great, yawning abyss of the southern vortex...
Can hardly wait for the northern hexagon to peek into sunlight after, what ... more that 7 years of polar night.
My goodness... what beauty abounds out there... I never get complacent. Each place we explore, all filled with wonders galore.
Craig
Posted by: tty Jul 19 2008, 09:13 PM
I think you should submit it to APOD.
Posted by: djellison Jul 19 2008, 09:17 PM
I've never submitted stuff to APOD. They just find the version of the creation that isn't quite finished, post it, write a caption for it that doesn't give the right acknowledgements, and isn't entirely accurate and don't tell you. Then, the first you hear about it is someone emailing you to tell you that the caption is wrong for that image you sent to APOD.
That's what's happened to me.
Twice.
Posted by: nprev Jul 19 2008, 10:18 PM
That's a beauty indeed, Gordan! 
Trying to remember the scale here in NASA "big-as" terms so I can wow my co-workers with this on Monday. IIRC, the entire vortex is about the same size as the diameter of the Earth? If so, those subsidiary hurricane-like storms are pretty honkin' big as well...
Posted by: siravan Jul 20 2008, 06:03 PM
I know the south vortex is supposed to be smooth (circular or elliptical), but I cannot help to notice it in the ugordan's image that the vortex is in fact polygonal (24-gon maybe?).
Posted by: dilo Oct 14 2008, 05:31 PM
Impressive new pictures of south storm with new details.
http://ciclops.org/view_event/91
I tried to improve the edge-on noisy picture without impact too much on details:
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