Dissecting Saturn's Big Storm

Back on December 5th, instruments aboard the Cassini spacecraft picked up radio and plasma-wave signals from a thunderstorm brewing in the planet's northern hemisphere. Only three days later, amateur Sadegh Ghomizadeh in Iran spotted a new white atmospheric disturbance on the planet. It rapidly grew in an east-west direction from its vertex at 41° north latitude; within a month it was spanning 100° of longitude. At center and on the right are thermal infrared images of Saturn from the mid-Infrared VISIR instrument at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal, Chile. At left is an amateur visible-light image from Trevor Barry of Broken Hill, Australia. The images were obtained on Jan. 19, 2011, during the mature phase of the northern storm. The second image was taken at 18.7 microns, a wavelength that reveals heat coming from below and shadowy structures blocking it in Saturn's lower atmosphere. The third image, taken at 8.6 microns, is sensitive to higher altitudes in Saturn's normally peaceful stratosphere, where we see the unexpected beacons of infrared emission flanking the central cool region over the storm. Such spectacular sights have been observed only five previous times since 1876. Until now they could be studied only in reflected sunlight. This time, however, not only do we have a spacecraft on the scene but astronomers on the ground can probe into the atmosphere at infrared wavelengths. Data from the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on Cassini, and thermal imaging from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Chile, have presented a team of scientists led by Leigh Fletcher (Oxford University) an unprecedented opportunity to quantify the changes in Saturn's stormy zones. Two spectroscopic readings by Cassini — the first taken last October 22nd (well before the storm began) and the second on January 19th (45 days after its onset) — show a 7K to 9K drop in temperature. Thermal imaging shows that the cloud upheaval causes a darkened cold spot over the 3,000-mile-wide vortex and warms areas around the periphery . Over the storm's head, the airmass appears streaked with warm zones, dubbed stratospheric beacons. While only the broadest picture is within the reach of amateur telescopes, it's exciting to peek beneath the blanket of stormy clouds on Saturn by way of images from more powerful instruments.

What is the Great Red Spot? « It's a Beautiful Earth

Jupiter is a fascinating planet, and the largest planet of our solar system. Dwarfing all other planets, Jupiter could fit 1321 Earths inside of it, and 3 Earths inside of its Great Red Spot. What is the great red spot? It’s a terrifyingly powerful storm, with up to 560000000 square km of raw destructive area. It’s been churning violently for at least 340 years, and it doesn’t look like stopping soon. It’s basically what happens when a hurricane get pissed off.

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The picture in the top of the post is actually an important one, because before that one, high resolution images of this storm just weren’t possible. Technology has given us the ability to actually see one of these in all it’s glory, and that’s something to respect. Go humans.

I just wanted to post this astonishing picture to show people what kind of scale is outside our planet’s atmosphere. In space, planets move at immense speeds and produce incredible things. It seems like nothing is small in space, everything operates on a scale that we never see on our planet. For this reason, space is fascinating, because it also means there’s even more complexity and wonder than just what we find on our Earth. This storm on Jupiter is actually very complex and stable, even though it looks like a swirling vortex of death and horror, which is surprising. But there’s a lot about space that would surprise people, if they only cared to look.

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