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Mysteries Swirl Around Cyclones At Saturn's Poles
Riding with Robots writes "New images of Saturn from the robotic spacecraft Cassini are shedding new light on monstrous storms that swirl at both poles of the ringed planet. 'These are truly massive cyclones, hundreds of times stronger than the most giant hurricanes on Earth,' said one mission scientist. Cumulus clouds twirl around the vortices, betraying the presence of giant thunderstorms lurking beneath. But the storms do not disturb the bizarre hexagonal cloud formation previously reported."
It's a McFlurry!!
"Instead of worrying about Saturn's cyclones, how about worrying about earth's cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis?"
Do they come with unusual cloud formations?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Puny humans trying to copy their crop circles. Hah!
If it were cyclones around Uranus, would it be a moon then?
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Don't you think this kind of research will help us better understand our own planet? After all, you don't get to understand how humans work by only studying humans. You study related -- and not so related -- animals and plants.
You're so right. Instead of wasting money on space-based research all these years, we should have been investing in weather satellites, remote sensing capabilities, worldwide communication networks, faster computers, and...
Oh, wait...
Saddle up: Riding with Robots
...swirling around the south pole of Uranus.
You mean the old compare and contrast thing?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Original story is at http://ciclops.org/view_event/91/Great_Storm_of_the_South.
I would be curious to know how far down these things go. They look like Taylor columns to me, and in principle could go all the way to the other side, assuming there isn't a rocky core down there somewhere.
Instead of worrying about Saturn's cyclones, how about worrying about earth's cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis?
Lets reserve the funding for this within our own earth please. On one hand, people talk about making the earth "green" and on the other hand, they blow up useful money into researching how the universe was built, whether Mars has life on it, how cyclones and tsunamis occur on Saturn. Does the scientific community not have its priorities right and consistent?
Instead of wasting time on Slashdot, how about selling your computer and donating that money (not to mention the time you'll save) to helping the world's hungry? There are people who go without food and you're squandering your time and money trolling the internet looking for things to complain about?
Eigen vibration galore baby! Deeep base.... VERY VERY deeep base. Cool.... Saturn is having a house party!
Maybe for aliens monoliths should have 6 sides and not built from solid materials. Maybe in a future we could send a probe and hear "Oh my god, is full of water drops!"
We're going to have to rethink our our plans for mobile home parks on Saturn.
Have gnu, will travel.
"mysteryeffects"
Get your head out of Uranus. You'll get "ring around the collar."
Or, like some constipated astronaut, Klingons ...
Besides, when did the Poles get to Saturn? We haven't even made it to Mars yet.
Speaking as a physicist, physical insight is always increased when you look at a broader problem. Studying cyclones only on the Earth is like trying to understand gravity while limiting your observations to distances between the ground and the height of a tree. You can come up with a great linear gravitational potential function, but you will never understand the physical significance of gravity. Only when you look at the broader problem do you begin to understand how gravity actually works. From there you can make assumptions, develop the math, and use it as a stepping stone to jumpstart other ideas, like classical electrodynamics (which itself provided the stepping stone for the complete rewrite of gravitational theory).
The benefits of studying weather patterns and geology outside of the narrow range that we observe on the Earth could be enormous. By observing the bizarre, we might be able to gain some insight into the mundane. These cyclones are a perfect chance. We have a pretty good idea on how cyclones work on the Earth, but the cyclones on Saturn are a mystery. By unraveling how these cyclones work, it should be possible to make a much more robust theory on how all cyclones will work.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
These are truly massive cyclones, hundreds of times stronger than the most giant hurricanes on Earth
So how many Katrinas is that?
Or perhaps more appropriately, how many Great Red Spots is that?
Also, when it comes to storms, does size=strength?
Well I am volunteering at DPS 2008 at Cornell University this weekend and it certainly has been awesome. I am not aware of a discussion of this topic (sounds like this is something new anyway). I know that Neptune's dark spots do have methane clouds that form around it because of condensation from air moving upwards rapidly. I wonder if these cyclones have anything to do with the hex nut at the north pole of saturn.
Maybe they'd better check those dark spots for the presence of objects with the precise proportions of 1:4:9
have landed on Saturn.
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so I cynically give this article an honorary (-1) for over-sensationalized adjectives. "Monstrous", "massive", "hundreds of times stronger than storms on earth" - (I say in good humor) - isn't Saturn A SUPER-HUGE GAS GIANT OVER 763 TIMES THE VOLUME OF EARTH? So, yes, IT HAS BIG WEATHER. I certainly DO appreciate the exploration & research, it's just that I don't think anyone's impressed with the "monstrous storms" characterization anymore; maybe the Science Channel has desensitized us to scale superlatives. Also, get off my lawn! :-D http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Saturn&Display=Facts&System=Metric
"Have you heard of some type of thing?" -- anon
As someone already said in the original thread, my hunch would be Benard convection cells as well (same as you can see in boiling water even) maybe also look on '2:1 frequency-locking' and hexagonal patterns observed in standing waves.
It never fails to amuse me when someone inevitably pops up and says that instead of furthering our knowledge of space, the universe, physics and astronomy, we should put that money into "earth" and not worry about what's sitting out there in the ether since it doesn't help them afford a gallon of gas right now. Think beyond your little sphere of "me, me, me". Exploration and research into the universe *always* comes back to benefit us here on Earth, in one form or another. The more we learn about what's around us, the more we know to apply it here.
Baseless self confidence kills more people each year than bathtubs.
... it is a logo. Saturn runs Debian GNU/Linux.
Ah yes, because every problem can be solved faster by throwing more people at it! Why, if only we could convince 9 women to team up, they could have a baby in just 1 month!
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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I drank what? -- Socrates
My take on this is to give the common person some kind of reference that they can understand. If they just gave estimated wind speeds there's nothing there that normal daytime TV watching mouthbreathers can use to relate to what they know. Taking numbers out of thin air - if Hurricane Jerry Springer was 150 miles per hour then they can say that the Saturn Storms are 10 times more powerful. That gives a understandable frame of reference.
We all do it when we're talking to people outside of our field. Without a reference they can understand there's no comprehension. It's like saying the storm area is the size of [insert state here]. Sure, it may be considered dumbing down the science but if they can get people interested then that isn't such a bad thing.
Get off my intarwebz you whippersnappers!
The hexagonal clouds are no mystery. You see, Saturn is far away. It was never meant to be looked at up close. The Designers just didn't bother to waste a lot of polygons on it to approximate a sphere. It's just a low-poly model with some texturing tricks to hide the edges.
If we want to see it in higher resolution we have to get our spacecraft new graphics cards, that's all.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
>>We all do it when we're talking to people outside of our field.
Okay, unfortunately for me, your statement is exactly right with respect to the "hundreds of times bigger" phrase.
BUT... sprinkling "massive," "monstrous," "mammoth" throughout doesn't provide any useful context to a person that doesn't know that Saturn is HUGE (regardless of that person's respiratory orifice of choice).
It's like telling one's grandma "my laptop has a monstrous hard drive and massive amounts of RAM"
I move that all planetary or astronomical research reporting be prefaced with with Douglas Adams' "you may think it's a long way to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts compared to space" quote as mantra. And when referencing weather on our gas giant planets, especially on Saturn & Jupiter, it be prefaced with "Saturn is a huge ball of weather 763 times Earth's volume*"
*That makes Saturn sound very loud, doesn't it? Ah, well, my heart's no longer in this grumpy rant, so I regretfully let it go. (but seriously, you are STILL ON MY LAWN!)
"Have you heard of some type of thing?" -- anon
This grumpy rant is far too fun to let die. Elucidated and gramatically correct discourse? Not on your life!
I fully agree with the superlatives being done to the point of losing all meaning and I should have said that in my original response. 'Massive' has no meaning without an explanation. 'Massive in comparison to the surface area, covering fully 20%' would be far more in line with actually defining what they mean by using the word massive.
I long for the days when they taught actual science in schools so this kind of thing wouldn't be necessary. Your footnote about the multiple meanings of the measure 'volume' is just a sad fact these days.
I'm gonna stay on your lawn until you offer me a chilled beverage with salt on the rim of the glass and a chair. Honestly, what kind of hospitality do you call this??
What?? You never heard of google??
Dontcha think that would be a more obvious place to start searching for information rather than Wikipedia.
Sheesh, the intarwebs iz full o' fuckin' morons.
Why haven't we shot a probe through Saturn or Jupiter? You know, to see if it will come out the other side. Alternatively, it could catosrophically crash into whatever tiny solid formation is at the center, and think of all the fun that could be!
Buttons aren't toys.
Well, actually you're right. 9 babies in 9 months averages out to one per month. Over a long enough period of time it all averages out.
'Massive in comparison to the surface area, covering fully 20%'
exactly - is that too much to ask? Enjoy your virtual margarita, sir or madam, you have earned it.
"Have you heard of some type of thing?" -- anon
...Cylons?
Simple really, it is nothing more than the Sol system's Well Gate... The Well World computer had to get us all here somehow right?
Pity Chalker isn't around to see this...