Astronomers Find 'Hot Spot' on Saturn

AP on Yahoo ^ | 2/4/05 | Jaymes Song - AP

[popdonnelly]

Somebody tell Ted Kennedy. He's always looking for hot spots.

[Mister Baredog]

Is Hawaii better able to discover this than Cassini currently orbiting Saturn, just curious?

[ChadGore]

Looks interesting, is there any oil ?

LOL ! Looks like oil to me . . let's invade ! < / liberal conspiracy theory >

[libsrscum]

Well, it's better than finding a hot spot on Uranus.
:)

[r9etb]

I'm also interested in the wedge-shaped chunk that's missing from the rings. Do Astronomers have any explanation for how such a neat slice of ring-material could be suddenly removed???

If you look at it just right, you can see stars....

[ProudVet77]

Perhaps whatever it was actually penetrated the atmoshpere at the pole. There must be objects moving in orbits that are not along the plane of the ecliptic.

[r9etb]

Well, it's better than finding a hot spot on Uranus.

Just ask the folks who competed in the Wing Bowl this morning....

[Salgak]

Women, children, the elderly, and minorities most affected. And it's all the fault of Chimpy McBushitler. . .

What's the bet that someone on DU has ALREADY posted this ???(evil grin)

[Salgak]

Indeed. . .

It's FULL OF STARS !!!!

[expatpat]

They must have a lot of SUV on Saturn -- plus a lot of Freon in their ACs.

[goldstategop]

Gas giants may be considered "failed stars." They're not large enough for the hydrogen in their atmospheres to ignite and burn in a chain nuclear reaction. If the sun dies one day, humanity may find a way to combine the gas giants in our solar system to give birth to a new sun.

Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."

[RightWhale]

It's possible. The Schumaker comet that hit Jupiter struck around a high latitude. Jupiter swallowed that without a trace in a couple days, so, if this hot spot on Saturn is due to something like that, it would have to have been fairly massive. Perhaps it is more like those stellar objects with an x-ray beam coming out of the poles, a quasar kind of reaction.

[Grut]

Do Astronomers have any explanation for how such a neat slice of ring-material could be suddenly removed???

Funding cut.

[aft_lizard]

My theory is that over the period of increased heating by its summers the gasses expand and by the force of its gravitation field heat up,instead of the heat and gasses expelling in an outward motion towards space they "pool" at its poles to perform a controlled venting where as the atmosphere of Saturn doesnt ignite or feed upon itself thus maintaning its large mass over eons.

[Question_Assumptions]

Uh, don't we have an expensive an impressive probe orbiting Saturn? Why isn't it taking these pictures?

[RadioAstronomer]

Interesting. :-)

Thanks for the ping.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!

[sourcery]

"A really hot thing within a couple degrees of the pole is something I don't understand at all," he said.

Perhaps the Fermi Paradox has now been solved?

[Swordmaker]

Perhaps the Fermi Paradox has now been solved?

More likely Maxwell's demons...

[Swordmaker]

The article claims it is the first hot vortex found... untrue.

Hot poles of Enceladus

Still in the Saturnian system...