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Saturn's Monstrous South Polar Storm - 5000 Miles across
Thunderbolts.org ^ | 11/01/2007

Posted on 11/13/2007 12:34:35 PM PST by Swordmaker

 


ASA Sees into the Eye of a Monster Storm on Saturn. Cassini image recorded November 9, 2006
Source: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute



Nov 1, 2007
Saturn's Monstrous Polar Storm

A gigantic vortex centered on Saturn's south pole has sent astronomers scrambling for answers—again. They remain unaware that Wallace Thornhill had predicted this very "surprise."

A recent image of Saturn’s south polar region, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, poses further mysteries for NASA investigators. The cameras reveal a giant hurricane-like “storm” with a polar eye, ringed by towering clouds.

The "hurricane" spans a dark area inside a thick, brighter ring of clouds. It is approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across, or two-thirds the diameter of Earth. “It looks like a hurricane, but it doesn't behave like a hurricane," said Dr. Andrew Ingersoll, a member of Cassini's imaging team at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Whatever it is, we're going to focus on the eye of this storm and find out why it's there."

Since eye-wall clouds are a distinguishing feature of hurricanes on Earth, NASA astronomers have been quick to draw a parallel, though in their own words, the differences are noteworthy as well. As the NASA news release states, “This giant Saturnian storm is apparently different from hurricanes on Earth because it is locked to the pole and does not drift around. Also, since Saturn is a gaseous planet, the storm forms without an ocean at its base.”

But the release does not address the deeper enigma: hurricanes typically originate in areas of solar heating, whereas by definition a polar region is subject to the lowest levels of solar radiation.

In its discussion of unanswered questions, the NASA release can offer no explanation for the anomalous heating of Saturn’s southern pole. But for Wallace Thornhill, who has given considerable attention to the Saturnian system, all of the indications of electrical activity point to currents flowing into the south polar region. The consequence of this focusing of current flow would be an energetic vortex penetrating deep into its upper atmosphere. In this interpretation, the two spiral arms noted by NASA are the telltale signature of the twin “Birkeland currents” associated with vortex formation. (See “The 'Spiral Galaxy' at Saturn's Pole” at Holoscience.com)

NASA’s discussion, on the other hand, is limited to the mechanics of wind and water circulation. As stated by Dr. Richard Achterberg, a member of the Cassini team, "The winds decrease with height, and the atmosphere is sinking, compressing and heating over the South Pole.” When isolated from any meaningful explanation of the phenomenon, such language is in no way helpful!

The release states that the Saturn’s polar “hurricane” is “something never before seen on another planet.” This language is eerily familiar. In 1978, NASA’s Pioneer Venus Orbiter revealed “one of the more remarkable phenomena in the solar system” – a double-eye vortex at Venus’ north pole. Almost 30 years later, when the ESA’s Venus Express detected a similar vortex at Venus’ south pole, the organization described it as a “peculiar double-eye vortex structure, never clearly seen by any other Venusian mission before.”
In both the Saturnian and Venusian instances, the twin spiraling components moved, but the vortex itself remains anchored to the pole—exactly as the electrical theorists would expect.

Thornhill wrote in February 2005: "…[Saturn's polar 'hot spot'] should be found on closer inspection to exhibit a similar structure to the Venusian polar dipole. Its compactness is due to the electromagnetic pinch effect where it enters Saturn's atmosphere. The hot spot's behavior should be variable like that on Venus and correlated with the appearance of Saturn's ring spokes, which are a visible manifestation of a heightened equatorial discharge in that part of Saturn's Faraday motor circuit. The Electric Universe also predicts, experimentum crucis, that BOTH poles should be hot, not one hot and the other cold.

…Verification of any of these predictions should serve notice that plasma cosmology and the electric model of stars is the cosmology of the future.”


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; polarvortex; saturn; saturntheory
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1 posted on 11/13/2007 12:34:36 PM PST by Swordmaker
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To: Swordmaker

Where’s FEMA?


2 posted on 11/13/2007 12:39:18 PM PST by Allegra (Greetings from a kinder, gentler Iraq. God bless US and Coalition Forces.)
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To: Allegra

Global Warming!!


3 posted on 11/13/2007 12:40:02 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes)
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To: Swordmaker

Bush’s fault


4 posted on 11/13/2007 12:40:07 PM PST by P8riot (I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop.)
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To: Swordmaker

Hey that hole looks familiar


5 posted on 11/13/2007 12:41:01 PM PST by P8riot (I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop.)
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To: Swordmaker

Clear magnetic formation.


6 posted on 11/13/2007 12:42:42 PM PST by RightWhale (anti-razors are pro-life)
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To: Swordmaker
They said there would be more hurricanes due to global warming. It's your fault that you assumed they meant on Earth.
7 posted on 11/13/2007 12:42:48 PM PST by Master Shake
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To: Swordmaker

Saturnians did not heed the warnings of global warming.


8 posted on 11/13/2007 12:44:45 PM PST by Ancient Drive
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To: Swordmaker

I wonder if there’s a mathematical maximum on the size of a storm in relation to the size of the planet?


9 posted on 11/13/2007 12:51:49 PM PST by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll.)
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To: zot

Ping.


10 posted on 11/13/2007 12:52:30 PM PST by Interesting Times (ABCNNBCBS -- yesterday's news.)
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To: Swordmaker
Kinda looks like a colonoscopy.
11 posted on 11/13/2007 12:55:02 PM PST by Doomonyou (Let them eat lead.)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
Global Warming!!

Do they have SUVs on Saturn?

12 posted on 11/13/2007 1:02:01 PM PST by Realism (Some believe that the facts-of-life are open to debate.....)
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To: Realism
Do they have SUVs on Saturn?

 

Obviously!!

13 posted on 11/13/2007 1:18:36 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes)
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To: Allegra

I’m looking for little green looter guys.


14 posted on 11/13/2007 1:32:17 PM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: RightWhale
Clear magnetic formation.

Notice the spiral arms down in the storm... and the forming eye shape...

15 posted on 11/13/2007 2:10:43 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE)
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To: Realism
Do they have SUVs on Saturn?

Of course...

Saturnian

Utility

Vehicles

16 posted on 11/13/2007 2:12:26 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE)
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To: Swordmaker
“Al Gore. Al Gore. Please pick up the white courtesy phone”
17 posted on 11/13/2007 2:14:40 PM PST by maine-iac7 (",,,but you can't fool all of the people all the time" LINCOLN)
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To: Swordmaker

It might be the USA economy circling the drain.


18 posted on 11/13/2007 2:14:41 PM PST by RightWhale (anti-razors are pro-life)
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To: Swordmaker

Well, here is the culprit: a Saturn SUV

19 posted on 11/13/2007 2:26:44 PM PST by tnlibertarian
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To: Interesting Times

Thanks for the ping. Very interesting. The electrical universe theorist makes an testable prediction that both poles will be hot. That sort of prediction is what scientists are supposed to do.


20 posted on 11/13/2007 4:33:52 PM PST by zot
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