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The Mystery of Saturn's Atmosphere

eldavojohn writes "Scientists are being forced to rethink theories on why Saturn's upper atmospheric temperature is hotter than can be explained by absorbed sunlight. 'This unexplained "energy crisis" represents a major gap in our understanding of these planets' atmospheres,' the scientists write. 'We need to re-examine our basic assumptions about planetary atmospheres and what causes the observed heating.'"

5 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Too darn hot by sporkme · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Easy. It must be all the SUV's.

    The corona of the sun is hotter than the surface or the core. Maybe they can examine the energies at work in the stellar phenomenon, as the gas giants are often referred to as "failed stars."

  2. Re:Mandatory GW by delt0r · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I would aggree with you.

    In fact I would go one step further, and predict that once we understand our atmosphere we will be able to show that we can never predict events of that atmosphere. Chaos and all that. So to double the predive accuracy or time length you need exponetially more data. I predict that even with ultra addvanced mesurement methods and supercomputers we still won't have a good weather forcast past 1 month.

    I still wonder why so many put so much faith in our gloabal warming prediction when our ablity to predict anything is rather poor. Especially the weather.

    Unlike modding on /. which is a truly stochastic process with no hidden varables. ;)

    --
    If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
  3. Re:Mandatory GW by PietjeJantje · · Score: 3, Interesting
    99 out of 100 scientists and everybody outside the USA think otherwise. I'm sure it's conspiracy, so I'm awaiting your scientific evidence that will make you that 1 guy that puts it all right.

    "I still wonder why so many put so much faith in our gloabal warming prediction when our ablity to predict anything is rather poor."

    Not only prediction, the prediction is the result of historical fact:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

    Note that such an increase in temperature in such a small period of time has nothing to do with our understanding of Ice Ages, the athmosphere of gas giants, the effects of year-long oil industry propaganda and campaign funding, or the weather forecast on Fox.

  4. Gravitational Contraction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    One source of energy in addition to the sun is the gravitational potential energy of the material of the planet itself. As more massive substances fall deeper into the planet, potential energy is turned into heat energy.

    Exactly how this energy gets into the upper atmosphere is an interesting question, but it isn't as much of a mystery as the article tries to make it out to be.

  5. Gravity Rules, EM Drools! by s388 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "the EM force rules the universe and all of the data coming back backs up the assertions of the Thunderbolts crew. The Einstein Special Relativity crowd who thinks gravity rules are just wrong. Sorry but they are. Special Relativity is a busted theory and it doesn't answer issues like the atmosphere temperature on Saturn."

    Special Relativity also doesn't explain the price of tea in China either, but I've never heard that cited as a disadvantage.

    I've also never heard any "relativity crowd" claiming that "gravity RULES" or that "EM drools" or any other similar nonsense that you just made up. I'm not a physicist and even I know that gravity is extremely weak relatively, no pun intended, and would never explain-- and isn't supposed to explain-- the vast majority of phenomena in the universe. You know, like sub-atomic ones, or the thermal mechanics of every atmosphere (let alone a single one), or good web design.

    You're looking for "true scientific types" and "some seriously good science" to swoop in and justify or expand on what you've claimed, but you don't seem to be a practitioner yourself.

    http://www.thunderbolts.info/synopsis2.htm

    Practically every passage of that page is problematic at best and absurd at worst. It's the kind of thing that's so foolish it makes you do a confused a tap-dance just to address the tangled web of stupidity. Here I go anyway: evidently no one pointed out that a force-like phenomenon keeps us attached to the earth-- we don't float away-- with no electricity or magnetism involved. And that when we formalize the relationship between people/cannonballs, the same principles (OF GRAVITY) easily and uncontroversially explain many cosmic phenomenon whose parts are billions of times more massive than people and even than our planet.

    "Close approaches of planets led to powerful electric arcing between planets and moons. All rocky bodies in the solar system show the massive scars of these kinds of electrical events."

    Interplanetary electric arcs? Come on.