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Post Info TOPIC: Saturn's upper atmosphere
Blobrana


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RE: Saturn's upper atmosphere
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Dragon Storm (dubbed so in September 2004 because of its unusual shape) is a large, bright and complex convective storm in Saturn's southern hemisphere. The Saturnian storm appears to be long-lived and periodically flares up to produce dramatic white plumes which then subside. The storm is a strong source of radio emissions.
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Blobrana


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Saturn cyclone
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Detectan un ciclón de más de cinco años de vida en Saturno

Investigadores de la Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU) han seguido durante más de cinco años un ciclón en Saturno. Esto lo convierte en el ciclón de mayor duración detectado hasta ahora en los planetas gigantes del Sistema Solar. Para realizar el estudio se han utilizado las imágenes de la sonda Cassini.
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Blobrana


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Saturn's aurora
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Discovery of Saturn's auroral heartbeat

An international team of scientists led by Dr Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester has discovered that Saturn's aurora, an ethereal ultraviolet glow which illuminates Saturn's upper atmosphere near the poles, pulses roughly once per Saturnian day.
The length of a Saturnian day has been under much discussion since it was discovered that the traditional 'clock' used to measure the rotation period of Saturn, a gas giant planet with no solid surface for reference, apparently does not keep good time.
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Blobrana


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NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed new photographs of powerful lightning flashing on Saturn after steadily watching a particularly stormy part of the ringed planet, according to a new study.
Lightning, a common phenomenon on Earth, has been an elusive target on Saturn, at times only indirectly identified by previous studies. The new photos show a series of bright flashes against a cloudy backdrop.
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Blobrana


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Cassini space probe captures new images of lightning, storms on Saturn

For the first time, scientists studying the planet Saturn have been able to see the lightning flashes of a large storm on the far side of Saturn's surface, thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, currently in orbit around our solar system's second-largest planet.
The Cassini space probe, designed and built by NASA, was launched into space along with the Huygens probe, constructed by the European Space Agency, on Oct. 15, 1997. It entered Saturn's gravitational field on July 1, 2004, and since then it has been orbiting the planet at a distance outside of its famed rings.
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Blobrana


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Cassini and Amateurs Chase Storm on Saturn

With the help of amateur astronomers, the composite infrared spectrometer instrument aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft has taken its first look at a massive blizzard in Saturn's atmosphere. The instrument collected the most detailed data to date of temperatures and gas distribution in that planet's storms.
The data showed a large, turbulent storm, dredging up loads of material from the deep atmosphere and covering an area at least five times larger than the biggest blizzard in this year's Washington, D.C.-area storm front nicknamed "Snowmageddon."
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Blobrana


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Saturn's hexagon
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Fluid clue to Saturn's hexagon

An unusual hexagonal structure found in Saturn's atmosphere has been recreated in an Oxford laboratory.
The mysterious 'hexagon' occurs at the planet's chilly North Pole and has been shown to extend deep into Saturn's atmosphere with a 'hotspot' at its core.
In new work published in Icarus, Peter Read and Ana Aguiar of Oxford University's Department of Physics have investigated the ways in which such an unusual polygonal structure may have formed.
They did this with experiments using a water tank filled with a solution of water and glycerol peppered with white 'tracer' particles. This tank was then mounted on a turntable and lit in such a way that the solution's flow at various speeds could be captured on camera.
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Blobrana


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Saturn's Lightning
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NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Sees Lightning On Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured images of lightning on Saturn. The images have allowed scientists to create the first movie showing lightning flashing on another planet.
After waiting years for Saturn to dim enough for the spacecraft's cameras to detect bursts of light, scientists were able to create the movie, complete with a soundtrack that features the crackle of radio waves emitted when lightning bolts struck.
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Blobrana


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Saturn's Mysterious Hexagon Emerges from Winter Darkness

After waiting years for the sun to illuminate Saturn's north pole again, cameras aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft have captured the most detailed images yet of the intriguing hexagon shape crowning the planet.
The new images of the hexagon, whose shape is the path of a jet stream flowing around the north pole, reveal concentric circles, curlicues, walls and streamers not seen in previous images.
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A powerful lightning storm in Saturn's atmosphere that began in mid-January 2009 has become the Solar System's longest continuously observed thunderstorm.
It broke the record duration of 7.5 months set by another thunderstorm observed on Saturn by NASA's Cassini spacecraft between November 2007 and July 2008. The observations of the thunderstorm will be presented by Dr Georg Fischer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany, on Tuesday 15 September.
The current thunderstorm on Saturn is the ninth that has been measured since Cassini swung into orbit around Saturn in July 2004. Lightning discharges in Saturn's atmosphere emit very powerful radio waves, which are measured by the antennas and receivers of the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument. The radio waves are about 10 000 times stronger than their terrestrial counterparts and originate from huge thunderstorms in Saturn's atmosphere with diameters around 3000 km.

"These lightning storms are not only astonishing for their power and longevity, the radio waves that they emit are also useful for studying Saturn's ionosphere, the charged layer that surrounds the planet a few thousand kilometres above the cloud tops. The radio waves have to cross the ionosphere to get to Cassini and thereby act as a natural tool to probe the structure of the layer and the levels of ionisation in different regions" - Dr Georg Fischer.

The observations of Saturn lightning using the Cassini RPWS instrument are being carried out by an international team of scientists from Austria, the US and France. Results have confirmed previous studies of the Voyager spacecraft indicating that levels of ionisation are approximately 100 times higher on the day-side than the night side of Saturn's ionosphere.
Lightning storms on Saturn usually occur in a region that nicknamed 'Storm Alley' by scientists, which lies 35 degrees south of Saturn's equator.

"The reason why we see lightning in this peculiar location is not completely clear. It could be that this latitude is one of the few places in Saturn's atmosphere that allow large-scale vertical convection of water clouds, which is necessary for thunderstorms to develop. However, it may be a seasonal effect. Voyager observed lightning storms near the equator, so now that Saturn has passed its equinox on 11 August, we may see the storms move back to equatorial latitudes" - Dr Georg Fischer.

Saturn's role as the source of lightning was given added confirmation during Cassini's last close flyby of Titan on 25 August. During the half hour that Cassini's view of Saturn was obscured by Titan, no lightning was observed.

"Although we know from Cassini images where Saturn lightning comes from, this unique event was another nice proof for their origin" - Dr Georg Fischer.

Source: European Planetology Network

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