Stare Into the Eye of This Insane Storm on Saturn

Saturn Storm Creates Largest and Hottest Vortex Ever Seen in Solar System

On the surface, Saturn seems calm. But the appearance of the largest and hottest vortex ever seen in the solar system has astronomers thinking that Saturn’s atmosphere has more going on than meets the eye.

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Last Edited by Rain-Man on 11/28/2012 02:54 PM

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been traveling the Saturnian system in a set of inclined, or tilted, orbits that give mission scientists a vertigo-inducing view of Saturn's polar regions. This perspective has yielded images of roiling storm clouds and a swirling vortex at the center of Saturn's famed north polar hexagon.

These phenomena mimic what Cassini found at Saturn's south pole a number of years ago. Cassini has also seen storms circling Saturn's north pole in the past, but only in infrared wavelengths because the north pole was in darkness. (See [link to www.jpl.nasa.gov] .) But, with the change of the Saturnian seasons, the sun has begun to creep over the planet's north pole.

This particular set of raw, unprocessed images was taken on Nov. 27, 2012, from a distance of about 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) from Saturn.

[link to www.nasa.gov]