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Saturn Has a Warm Pole

Posted by Hemos on from the like-forgotten-earth dept.

Artifex writes "Astronomers using infrared imaging capabilities at Keck Observatory in Hawaii have discovered that Saturn's "south" pole is warm - the first warm pole detected in the solar system. "

49 comments

  1. Clothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Saturn Has a Warm Pole

    What's he wearing? Thermal underwear?

  2. Dear God by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I read it as "Saturn Has a Worm Hole" and I was like "Dear God!" Not that a warm pole is a bad news, but discovering a worm hole (a theoretical distortion of space-time in a region of the universe that would link one location or time with another, through a path that is shorter in distance or duration than would otherwise be expected) would be an outsnadning breakthrough. For anyone interested, more info here.

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
    1. Re:Dear God by Bucky_the_AV_Guy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Exactly how I read it too....glad I'm not the only one.

    2. Re:Dear God by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On Star Trek thiat kind of thing is also known as a "sub-space anomoly."

    3. Re:Dear God by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 1

      I read it as such as well.

      Talk about a few moments of terror and confusion.

      --
      Pretty Pictures!
    4. Re:Dear God by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (a theoretical distortion of space-time in a region of the universe that would link one location or time with another, through a path that is shorter in distance or duration than would otherwise be expected)

      Only if you're a photon.

  3. Better by QMO · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought that this article was interesting in that it gave the information, explained that the information was incomplete, explained that the information was incompatible with some common ideas about how things work, and didn't try to scare me into anything.

    I didn't see any "as many as" or "could be the most" or even "may destroy civilization as we know it."

    Maybe if there were more political overtones to this topic the article would be more normal?

    --
    Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
    1. Re:Better by WhiplashII · · Score: 1

      I wonder if this could be caused by the density change associated with higher temperatures, mixed with the planets rotation? Maybe the planet is acting as a centrifuge, forcing warm air to stay in the poles...

      Come on everybody, what's your theory?

      --
      while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
    2. Re:Better by QMO · · Score: 1

      Maybe what looks like the bottom of Saturn to us is really the top, and we all know that hot air rises . . .

      How's that for a theory?

      --
      Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
    3. Re:Better by youknowmewell · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Volcano that is conveniently located at or near the pole.

    4. Re:Better by battlesharrp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Possibly a volcano...
      But don't you have to have a mostly solid(or at least plastic-y like the mantle) surface to have something resembling a volcano?

    5. Re:Better by WormholeFiend · · Score: 1

      No shit. He could've said "maybe there's a giant swiss cheese fondue at the south pole generating the heat" and it would have hardly been more ludicrous.

      I think it could be from exothermic chemical reactions between the gases that tend to accumulate at that particular pole. Wouldn't that be easy to verify by spectral analysis of that particular region of the planet?

    6. Re:Better by battlesharrp · · Score: 1

      I like the exothermic chemical reactions idea- what would you be checking if you were using a spectral analysis? It seems they already did something similar, but I thought that was part of how they found the warm spot.
      Maybe convection currents.

      I wish there was fondue on Saturn. Then maybe we'd have more of an incentive to develop better technology and go there to investigate semi-intelligent fondue making organisms.

  4. Warm pole? by base3 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I swear, sometimes the jokes just write themselves!

    --
    One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
    1. Re:Warm pole? by FCAdcock · · Score: 1

      I was honestly expecting more references to uranus though... Come on people, get on the ball.

      --
      --Forest C. Adcock--
  5. I know where this came from by AtariAmarok · · Score: 3, Funny

    Didn't this come from the book of "Roman God Pickup Lines" ?

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
    1. Re:I know where this came from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hahaha. Have you seen my Venis?

  6. It's all relative? by Bucky_the_AV_Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While I appreciate this is the first planet in the solar system to display this - is it not all relative? The scientists that found this vortex did not estimate the temperature at the pole. Saturn has to be by and large pretty bloody cold. The fact that the pole is warmer than the rest of the planet is not necessarily all that meaningful is it? I mean it could still be way way below the freezing mark. I mean if ithe average temperature of saturn is -130C (http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/bobalien99/table.htm ) and the pole is even 30 degrees C warmer then the pole is only -100C! Still not much going to be happening there I would think.

    Perhaps someone else can help me see the real significance of this. (Really I am interested).

    1. Re:It's all relative? by Scarblac · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Of course it is still bloody cold there - it's described as a jet steam in the Saturn atmosphere, i.e. more atmospheric activity than usual. Not hot springs.

      The significance is that we don't have an explanation for it. It's something strange and unexpected. On other planets, the poles are colder than the rest.

      Furthermore, if this were the result of seasons (the pole has been in continuous sunlight for 18 earth years, just like our poles have a continuous day during summer), then you'd expect the effect to be gradual, but it's apparently pretty abrupt.

      So, unexplained surprising phenomenon. Always interesting.

      --
      I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
    2. Re:It's all relative? by witte · · Score: 1

      Maybe it has something to do with the rings casting shadows over the equatorial parts, so the atmosphere has an unusual temperature distribution, causing the winds to migrate in the opposite sense compared to what we would expect. (Cooling down at the equator and blowing down, warming up at the pole, expanding and rising up.)

      (disclaimer = didn't RTFA. Mod down accordingly.)

  7. He'd better be - and several layers of it by leonbrooks · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Warm" is defined here relative to roughly -100 to -200degC ambient. "Warm" might freeze you to death in ten minutes instead of eight. "Cold" might freeze you to death in seconds.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
    1. Re:He'd better be - and several layers of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like my last girlfriend...

      badda bing!

  8. Funny you should say that. by artifex2004 · · Score: 1

    Hemos (rightfully) put the smack down on my original submission:

    http://science.slashdot.org/~artifex2004/journal/9 7633

    1. Re:Funny you should say that. by base3 · · Score: 1

      Beautiful :)!

      --
      One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
    2. Re:Funny you should say that. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      rightfully? personally, I appreciate a sense of humor in both the story submission and the comments. this is why I think the funny mod should give karma...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Funny you should say that. by artifex2004 · · Score: 1
      rightfully? personally, I appreciate a sense of humor in both the story submission and the comments. this is why I think the funny mod should give karma...


      I appreciate the sentiment, but Hemos wields a lot of power :)
  9. $PLANET has a warm pole... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Funny

    If it'd been Uranus, I think I woulda called in sick today.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
    1. Re:$PLANET has a warm pole... by deglr6328 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Since Uranus is tilted on its axis almost ninety degrees it is very likely that the same polar vortex mechanism is at work there (probably even bigger effect than on Saturn) too and we jest haven't seen it yet due to a lack of angular resolution from our ground telescopes. So yes, Uranus probably does have a big hot pole!

      --
      - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
    2. Re:$PLANET has a warm pole... by lazy+genes · · Score: 1

      Uranus has a big black hole

    3. Re:$PLANET has a warm pole... by gorton · · Score: 1

      That's right on correct. I'm waiting first to see whether Saturn's north pole has a cold polar vortex (like nearly the entire rest of the solar system atmospheres whose poles endure winter at one time or another)...maybe the Cassini infrared instrument (CIRS) will discover this in the next few years. Now Uranus is now 2 years away from equinox, so it will be a bit of a wait until it's pole-on again, as it was in 1986. The best we can do is compare relative temperatures, so I'm about the task of analyzing Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly Space Infrared Telescope Facility, SIRTF) spectra of Uranus and comparing them with 1986 spectra which I took at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. For myself and Padma Yanamandra-Fisher, co-discoverers of the Saturn "hot spot". Glenn Orton, JPL

    4. Re:$PLANET has a warm pole... by deglr6328 · · Score: 1

      interesting. very cool to have the discoverer of the phenomenon here with us! congradulations and please stick around! I'm sure you can contribute valuable information to other science articles appearing here in the future :)

      --
      - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
    5. Re:$PLANET has a warm pole... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not too likely (there already aren't enough hrs in the day ... or the night!) I came across this after cheking in (for amusement mostly )the 9,000-some links to typing in "Saturn's hot pole" on Google. ...The Associated Press Honolulu office really did a good job this time! :-)

  10. Sexy Saturn by hab136 · · Score: 1

    So.. it's got a hot bottom?

  11. CNN's headline is better... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It reads: Astronomers find Saturn 'hot spot.'

    Those dang wireless cafes are everywhere. Looks like Starbucks really is everywhere now.

  12. broadband imaging by helioquake · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Considering this is a broad-band IR imaging, isn't it plausible that the bright spot in the south pole is not due to strong thermal continuum, but instead due to strong emission line features?

    I wonder if Saturn is too bright for the Spitzer's spectrogrpah.

    1. Re:broadband imaging by astrobabe · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Given that I work for Spitzer. . .yes. Saturn is on the list of bright sources that will saturate the detectors except possibly short exposures in high resolution mode of IRS. Given that we've accidentally slewed the telescope across it though and left latents, we probably won't be observing it any time soon.

    2. Re:broadband imaging by gorton · · Score: 1

      We'd call it medium-band imaging (about 10%), but we're lucky in that we don't expect narrow emission lines in this region and that we're about to be checked soon (I hope) by the high-resolution Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on board the Cassini spacecraft. The atmospheric opacity is supplied by a spectrally broad quasi-"continuum" absorption arising from a collision-induced dipole of molecular hydrogen (a very weak absorber, but all the outer planets have PLENTY of it!) Glenn Orton, JPL (co-discoverer)

  13. You're not doing it right. by WaterBreath · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Saturn's "south" pole is warm

    Okay, I'm gonna be nitpicky here... Why in the world is the word "south", within quotation marks in the post?

    Any planet with a magnetic field will have a south pole (and a north pole, of course), which will probably be on the rotational axis of the planet, and which will not necessarily point the same direction in 3-space as Earth's south pole. The linked story doesn't make a distinction. And a quick Google search shows that none of the major science news outlets have put the "south" in quotes, or made any note that it might not actually be the magnetic south pole. So, why would the poster feel it's necessary to throw in the quotes? A failed attempt at being clever?

    1. Re:You're not doing it right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Actually, no, the magnetic pole is only vaguely close to the rotational pole; and the magnetic polarity of a planet is capable of shifting, while the rotational polarity does not. And a body might be rotated 180 deg to the ecliptic, too, so that its rotational south pole is lined up with the planets' rotational north poles. So one has to decide whether the "south" pole is the rotational south pole or the ecliptical south pole. Me, I'd go for ecliptical.

    2. Re:You're not doing it right. by merlin_jim · · Score: 2, Informative

      Any planet with a magnetic field will have a south pole (and a north pole, of course), which will probably be on the rotational axis of the planet, and which will not necessarily point the same direction in 3-space as Earth's south pole.

      You don't even need a magnetic field...

      Universal definitions:

      East is in the direction of the planet's rotation

      West is the opposite of East

      If you face East, North is on your left and South is on your right.

      For bodies that are tidally locked it gets more complicated... but since Saturn isn't, it has clearly defined North and South poles

      In addition, for planets with a magnetic field, there's a magnetic North and magnetic South pole. However, pinpointing the location of a magnetic pole isn't as easy as a rotational pole (as it tends to move over time), so when speaking of poles, it can be assumed you're discussing a rotational pole rather than magnetic.

      --
      I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
    3. Re:You're not doing it right. by WaterBreath · · Score: 1
      Ah, interesting. I didn't know that east was universally defined as the direction of rotation.

      Still doesn't explain the quotes though.

    4. Re:You're not doing it right. by coyote-san · · Score: 1

      My head hurts.

      You do realize, do you not, that the earth's magnetic fields has flipped countless times in the past? In fact some people think we may be starting to see the start of a new reversal - the strength of the earth's magnetic field has dropped dramatically in the last century.

      Are we going to have to redo all of our maps with Australia at the top?

      --
      For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
    5. Re:You're not doing it right. by GagnierA · · Score: 1

      That's rediculous! Just because the earth's magnetic feild might change, that doesn't mean the entire construction of the continents is going to change too...lol. I'm just going to assume that you didn't mean that :P :)

    6. Re:You're not doing it right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There is no 'e'.

      That's the second post of yours I've read this morning in which you spelled the word wrong. Really, there is just no excuse.

    7. Re:You're not doing it right. by merlin_jim · · Score: 1

      No it doesn't explain the quotes hahaha

      I'm guessing maybe the quotes have to do with the fact there's no ground into which to stick a pole?

      --
      I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
    8. Re:You're not doing it right. by WaterBreath · · Score: 1
      You do realize, do you not, that the earth's magnetic fields has flipped countless times in the past?

      I do. But AFAIK, for as long as humans have known at least generally how magnets work, it has not changed. Also, this response was quite insightful, but as I later responded, it still does not explain the quotes.

    9. Re:You're not doing it right. by GagnierA · · Score: 1

      uhh...how old are you? What difference does it make? It's a simple spelling error. I'm sure you're not completely unfallible. The premise is there, quit your nit-picking. This isn't a spelling competition. haha :P :)

  14. don't leave home without it... by MoFoQ · · Score: 1

    Don't forget the sun tan lotion!

  15. Ob Beatles or Snoopy Ref by Stanistani · · Score: 1

    Happiness is a warm pole...

    --
    You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia