The colored swirls indicate the stern end of Saturn ’s monumental storm that hap sometime between 2010 and 2011 . Photo : NASA / JPL - Caltech / Space Science
East Coasters panic by this weekend ’s oncomingFrankenstormhaven’t seen anything yet . New readings from NASA ’s Cassini orbital spacecraft have discovered that a monolithic maelstromfirst spottedon Saturn in 2010 was more intense than ab initio thought . The gigantic , swirl brute inflate to 180,000 miles in length — many time the sizing of Earth — and , according to a new study , was seeing unwarranted temperature fluctuation to the air of 150 degree Fahrenheit . Here , a brief guide to the ringed planet ’s megastorm :
How big was it?Really , really big . To get a unspoiled idea of how vast 180,000 mile is , consider thatEarth ’s diameter is just 7,926 mi . First blot two geezerhood ago by amateur astronomers as a decided white spot in Saturn ’s northern hemisphere , the storm grew to be larger than Earth in a few short hebdomad . After three month , it had wrapped completely around the planet , thanks to strong atmospherical winds . By that time , the gigantic weather anomaly had an " unprecedented temperature capitulum that released long ton of vigor , equivalent to an enormous planetary belch,“says Adam Mann atWired . By mid-2011 , the superstorm began to retreat and " the tooth had been take out of it,“says Phil Plait atDiscover Magazine . But it still had " one surprise left in it . "
What was the surprise?Inside the giant tempest was a swirling , powerful vortex — a storm within a violent storm . Inside the swirl , temperatures heave 150 degree Fahrenheit above normal , a change " so extreme it ’s almost unbelievable,“says study lead author Brigette Hesmanof the University of Maryland and NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center . " To get a temperature change of the same scale on Earth , you ’d be going from the depths of winter in Fairbanks , Alaska , to the height of summer in the Mojave Desert . "
So the whirlpool was burning hot?Not precisely . " It ’s not like it was a firestorm,“saysDiscover Magazine ’s Plait . The temperature was still a " parky " -238 degrees Fahrenheit — but that ’s considerably quick than Saturn ’s usual -364 degrees .
What was it like inside the storm?The storm , which was the largest immortalise storm since 1903 , emit an volatile amount of ethene , a colourless and inodorous gas not typically seen on Saturn , saysWired ’s Mann . Inside it was potential an " odd soupy mixture , " producing 100 times more ethene than scientists thought the planet was subject of .
