The atmospheric turbulence of the gas giant put Earth’s
Scientists have discovered that Saturn experiences long-lasting megastorms that persist for centuries and churn up its deep S atmosphere. Saturn had previously been considered somewhat calmer than its fellow gas giant Jupiter, which has been home to a huge storm called the Great Red Spot for hundreds of years.
The megastorms of Saturn, thought to occur between every 20 and 30 years, are similar to hurricanes on Earth but are much larger. Whereas Earth’s hurricanes get energy from our planet’s oceans, the mechanism driving megastorms in the hydrogen and helium-rich atmosphere of Saturn is somewhat mysterious. But astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan have learned more about these storms on Saturn by studying disruptions in the distribution of ammonia gas in the planet’s deep atmosphere. “Understanding the mechanisms of the largest storms in the Solar System puts the theory of hurricanes into a broader cosmic context, challenging our current knowledge and pushing the boundaries of terrestrial meteorology,” University of Michigan assistant professor Cheng Li said.
Li and the team detected this disruption by looking at radio emissions from ammonia in Saturn’s atmosphere using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. Though Saturn appears to have a mostly uniform colour in visible light, its distinctive banding and the differences between atmospheric layers at varying altitudes are more evident when seen in radio waves. That’s because radio observations can peer deeper into planets’ atmospheres than optical telescopes, allowing astronomers to better
