The Eye of Sauron is rising again, but now on Saturn!?
No, here’s what’s actually going on:
There’s a very striking storm on Saturn that has a very well-developed eye, and other striking features. Eyes this well-formed have not been seen on other planets before. Looks quite a bit like water swirling down the drain, doesn’t it? The storm also does not move around like hurricanes do on Earth, staying stuck a the Equator where it formed. At about 5000 miles across, it is roughly 2/3 the size of earth.
This storm has presented a number of juicy puzzles for those studying it. You can read more about them in this NASA news release or this Rueters (via Yahoo) article.
Quoting some data from the NASA site:
A movie taken by Cassini’s camera over a three-hour period reveals winds around Saturn’s south pole blowing clockwise at 550 kilometers (350 miles) per hour. The camera also saw the shadow cast by a ring of towering clouds surrounding the pole, and two spiral arms of clouds extending from the central ring. These ring clouds, 30 to 75 kilometers (20 to 45 miles) above those in the center of the storm, are two to five times taller than the clouds of thunderstorms and hurricanes on Earth.
-cvj
That’s what I LOVE about science. Just when we think we know some of the answers, the Universe throws us a curve!
Dharmashanti
Reminds of something out of a Farmer or Borges story. Ship arrives on new planet, crew about to begin exploration, and the mother of all storms hits. This one would be catastrophic for the sorts of craft and systems we currently use or have planned.
Ahhhh, clouds! When I was little, I got what must have been the second edition of The Universe And Beyond. It was full of pictures, but my favorite was a painting of an imaginary Jovian cloudscape, with towering walls of brown and white clouds soaring off into a brilliant blue sky. Ever since I saw it, I’ve wanted to live there! Of course, it would be hard to enjoy from inside a space suit, and the sky is probably far from as clear as it was in the painting. I wish Galileo had snapped a few pictures before it died… even if only to shatter my illusions.
Whoa! Are we talking about Jorge Luis here? I didn’t think he wrote any science fiction…
I can’t help but think that, well, this is the “bottom” of the planet…
Pyracantha
Depends on which hemisphere you live in. It could be hole in someone’s brain.
It brings to my mind a recent Venus Express image. Here is a back-lit view of clouds at a deep level within Venus’ atmosphere. .
Aha! I see I’m not alone in making the Venus and Saturn comparison!
Lovely link. Thanks!
-cvj
spyder: See Robert Sheckley’s “A wind is rising” (1957) — the plot is very similar to your description.