Posted on 12/24/2010 10:59:36 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) have been monitoring a cyclone on Saturn for more than five years. This makes it the longest-lasting cyclone detected to date on any of the giant planets of the Solar System. Images from the Cassini probe were used to carry out this study...
The team started to track the cyclone in 2004, the same year that the Cassini spacecraft (NASA-ESA-Italian Space Agency) started to send back images from Saturn. The scientists have been able to confirm the persistence of this enormous cyclone, which is similar in size to the European continent, between then and 2009. The diameter of its vortex (the oval-shaped circulation of the disturbance) is in excess of 4,000 kilometres...
...the team has analysed the horizontal morphology of the cyclone, the vertical structure of its clouds and its dynamics, as well as creating a model of the cyclone's internal circulation and its interaction with external winds, using mathematical simulations. The results have been published recently in the journal Icarus.
It is very difficult to measure the internal winds of the vortex because of the poor contrast of the images, but the researchers have been able to detect that they are 'not very intense' in comparison with the movement of the cyclone itself. The colossal whirlwind is moving at 245 km/h, dragged by a strong jet stream, while the maximum speed of the winds around its edge is 72 km/h...
In contrast with the large and long-lasting anticyclones on Jupiter, the cyclone on Saturn has a weak circulation, with properties very similar to those in its immediate environment...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencecentric.com ...
Bush’s fault.
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Women, children, and minorities hardest hit.
I would have thought the "Great Red Spot", but hey,....waddo I know.
The Great Red Spot is an anti-cyclone.
Potato - potahto ;)
(I miss sig226)
me too...
anti-Cyclone is such a negative term...
Reverse Cyclone?
Gay Cyclone?
Should we call Pecos Bill to tame that cyclone?
Saturn should see a doctor...
Due to Global Warming?
And the one on Jupiter is gone. Maybe it just moved on to Saturn.
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