Other
Scientific paper
Oct 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.3709d&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #37.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.488
Other
Scientific paper
Observations made by the Cassini spacecraft reveal a large, long-lived vortex anchored to the south pole of Saturn that shares many properties with terrestrial hurricanes. Among these are: a central eye with cyclonic vorticity, an outer region where vorticity is near zero, a warm temperature anomaly within the eye, concentric eyewall clouds that extend two pressure scale heights above the clouds within the eye, numerous small clouds whose anticyclonic vorticity suggests a convective origin, and evidence, at high altitudes, of excess cyclonic rotation not balanced by the inward pressure force, implying outward flow. Besides differences of scale, the main distinctions between hurricanes on Earth and the one seen on Saturn are the static, polar location of the latter and the lack of a liquid ocean to support it. This is the first hurricane-like vortex detected on a planet other than Earth.
Achterberg Richard K.
Barbara John
del Genio Anthony
Dyudina Ulyana A.
Ewald Shawn P.
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