Friday 10 November 2006

2006, A Space Oddity: Huge 'hurricane' rages on Saturn


BBC News:
A hurricane-like storm, two-thirds the diameter of Earth, is raging at Saturn's south pole, new images from Nasa's Cassini space probe reveal.

Measuring 5,000 miles (8,000km) across, the storm is the first hurricane ever detected on a planet other than Earth.

Scientists say the storm has the eye and eye-wall clouds characteristic of a hurricane and its winds are swirling clockwise at 350mph (550km/h).

However, unlike Earth hurricanes it seems stuck at the pole, not drifting.

"It looks like a hurricane, but it doesn't behave like a hurricane," Dr Andrew Ingersoll, a member of Cassini's imaging team at the California Institute of Technology said. "Whatever it is, we're going to focus on the eye of this storm and find out why it's there."

Have none of them seen '2001, A Space Odyssey'?