Spanish scientists reveal the behavior of large ... - The Vanguard

Madrid. (IRIN). – Scientists at Esteve Duran Observatory Foundation, the Science Institute de l’Espai, University of the Basque Country and the European University Miguel de Cervantes have managed to reveal how major storms behave Saturn after conducting a study on this planet, which has been published in the journal ‘Nature-Geoscience’.

About once every Saturn year, equivalent to about 30 Earth years, generated a storm of huge proportions that affects the appearance of the atmosphere on a global scale. These giant storms also called Great White Spots, since historically and since they began to observe (in 1876) have been presented as very bright white regions and highly differentiated from the rest of the planet’s atmosphere on observations with ground-based telescopes.

From the nineteenth century until the late twentieth century, there have been only five major storms. The sixth storm was scheduled for 2020 but was ahead 10 years, appearing in 2010. So, in early December three years ago, Saturn began to show a very bright white cloud mid-northern latitudes.

was the first sign of pregnancy of this majestic storm which reached an area of ??thousands of millions of square miles. On this occasion, the Cassini spacecraft was able to obtain very high resolution images of the great weather structure. The storm originated in a focus but quickly stretched in length and produced a change in the atmosphere, creating a ring of white clouds that enveloped the planet in less than two months and seemingly quiet disturbed vision we have of its clouds.

The storm was so extraordinarily active that produced a warming of more than 60 degrees in the high stratosphere located above the storm. Moreover, the Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn, recorded a record electrical activity during the seven months of life of the storm.

Both the analysis of the images of the storm sent by the Cassini probe, as computer models of the storm and the analysis of its clouds, have enabled this team of scientists for the first time explain the behavior of the storm. The team has carried out this work, analyzed the images taken by the Cassini spacecraft (NASA / ESA) to measure winds in the “head” of the storm and the focus where the activity originated.

Thus, they found that in this region the storm interacted with the surrounding atmosphere forming intense sustained winds up to 500 kilometers per hour. “We did not expect such a violent circulation in the region of development of the storm, which was a symptom of a particular interaction between the storm and the planet’s atmosphere,” said one of the authors, Enrique Garcia.

meteorological information for future

The study not only provides the discovery of strong winds associated with the storm, but also reveals the mechanism that generates, as experts have noted. The team of scientists designed own mathematical models able to reproduce the storm in a computer, which give a physical explanation of the behavior of this giant storm on Saturn.

Calculations showed that the focus of the storm, located in the lower layers of the atmosphere and fully accessible to observations from space, due to transport huge amounts of gas to the upper layers of the planet’s atmosphere where clouds are visible, and release huge amounts of energy that altered the appearance of the planet for months.

massive injection of energy interacted violently with Saturn’s prevailing winds to produce the observed winds of 500 kilometers per hour. Despite the advances provided by this study, it is still a mystery power source of these giant storms, located, possibly, some 250 kilometers below the cloud ceiling visible from space, where water condenses on Saturn.

Despite its enormous activity, the storm can not substantially change the regime prevailing winds that blow constantly in the same direction parallel to the ground, but interact violently with them.

Beyond

curious about the physical processes that lead to the formation of these giant storms on Saturn, the study of these phenomena has permitted a better understanding of weather patterns and behavior of the Earth’s atmosphere in an environment very different and impossible to simulate in a laboratory.

Saturn storms are somehow a test of the physical mechanisms that generate other meteorological phenomena on Earth, have indicated the study’s authors.