NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered a new wonder on Saturn--a huge vortex at the ringed planet's south pole. Images released Thursday show the first storm of its kind seen on another planet. Winds are swirling around an eye, just like a hurricane on Earth, except the winds on Saturn are blowing at about 350 miles per hour. A Category 5 hurricane on Earth contains winds of more than 156 miles per hour.
Clouds casting a shadow in the center of the vortex extend from 20 to 45 miles above the surface. This storm has a diameter of about 5,000 miles.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The four monochrome images were taken by the imaging science subsystem of the Cassini spacecraft and show the storm gathering intensity.
Hundreds of storm clouds encircle the pole, appearing as both bright and dark spots in images taken in sunlight (blue image) and as dark spots in the infrared spectrometer thermal image (red image).
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/University of Arizona
Cassini's instruments show the eye of the storm above Saturn's south pole is much warmer than the fringes of the storm.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/GSFC
The most famous storm in the solar system is within the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. That storm, which could fit three Earths, has been raging for at least 400 years. A new storm called Red Spot Jr. (lower left in photo) turned red within the past year.
Credit: NASA, ESA, I. de Pater and M. Wong/University of California at Berkeley
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