The Planetary Society Blog

Clearly this is one storm wrapping the globe in a conical progression toward the equator.

You see the tail of the storm below the origin of the storm after having wrapped completely around the planet.

What this likely shows us is that

1. the interior of the planet turns at a different rate than the upper clouds.
2.the origin of the storm is likely in that interior with the plume being lagging behind the origin and extending more than one complete wrap around the planet and showing up again nearer the equator than the origin.
3. that some mechanism causes the atmossphere of saturn to begin its swirling journey near the poles and then spiral around the planet toward the equator where it likely sinks again. it's likely this is either a density difference or electro static difference at the poles which affects the atmosphere where it rises at the poles and gradually diminishes as it reaches the equator.

This gives us a great idea of the pole to equator directional flow of this phenomenon.


my thought would be a density difference caused by a heating difference at the poles and the density gradation causes flow toward the equator likely from a centripetal acceleration caused by planetary rotation.

However an electrostatic potential difference cannot be ruled out between atmosphere at the pole sand the equator.

for citation/quoting credit "Vivzizi: random internet post in response to saturn storm photos"

vivzizi: i think it amusing that you think your post merits giving credit, let alone reposting, and that you pre-wrote that credit in the unlikely event that it is.

Vertigo,
In the new online world citation needs to come form all places.

The days of academics merely looking to journals edited by their friends to provide circular citationing are over.
Far more new ideas are published online these days than in journals.

Seeing as every single internet post about this image as called it "two storms" rather than realizing it is one storm sweeping around the whole planet and the concepts that indicates for the atmospheric circulation patterns of saturn - you're damn right it deserves citation. it's a groundbreaking novel observation and conclusion.

for citation/quoting credit "Vivzizi: random internet post in response to saturn storm photos and appropriateness of citing online contributions to science"

I concur with Vertigo. You sir, are ridiculous.

Wahhh...both of you...no one noticed my credit. Unless you are a post doc looking for a new line of funding from the govt teet...why waste our time...and vertigo just needs to be heard...wahhh...no on is paying attentions to my rampant posts...

Hmm, Vivzizi's conclusions appear to be pretty obvious. It certainly fits what one can easily observe. And circular citations are VERY prevalent.

Let us not ruin the pretty and interesting photographs with a flame war.

Looks like a race car leaving dust in its wake. Comet?

Hey, I heard it might be just one storm instead of 2. If this is true, it might mean that:

1. the interior of the planet turns at a different rate than the upper clouds.
2.the origin of the storm is likely in that interior with the plume being lagging behind the origin and extending more than one complete wrap around the planet and showing up again nearer the equator than the origin.
3. that some mechanism causes the atmossphere of saturn to begin its swirling journey near the poles and then spiral around the planet toward the equator where it likely sinks again. it's likely this is either a density difference or electro static difference at the poles which affects the atmosphere where it rises at the poles and gradually diminishes as it reaches the equator.

This gives us a great idea of the pole to equator directional flow of this phenomenon.

my thought would be a density difference caused by a heating difference at the poles and the density gradation causes flow toward the equator likely from a centripetal acceleration caused by planetary rotation.

However an electrostatic potential difference cannot be ruled out between atmosphere at the pole sand the equator.

I don't know where I read it, but it might be true.

From Vivzizi: for citation/quoting credit "Vivzizi: random internet post in response to saturn storm photos and appropriateness of citing online contributions to science"

For citation/quoting credit "earlaker: random internet post in reponse to random internet post with a stupid citation credit"

I have a cat who's name is "Floopy".

Planets are fun. I want one.

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This post may NOT be cited. This IP is PROTECTED under the CRMU License (Crazy-Random Made-Up License). You have been warned.
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Thought it was a good comment. lol'd at the second cutdown - textbook.

The rest of you duds should head back over to Youtube and continue the tradition there.

vivzizi seems to think that the track of the storm turbulence indicates that the atmosphere is following a conical path toward the equator. I think that the atmosphere is following circular paths and that the storm is moving toward the pole. Should be fairly easy to determine which case merits citation by looking back at earlier photographs.

Citation.. um.. Creative Commons Attribution, yeah, that ought to do it. :-) (I really don't care - just poking fun at the whole "citation from online anonymous comments" idea.)

It seems to me that either the storm is migrating toward the pole, or the stratosphere is carrying the upper layers of the storm toward the equator, or some combination of both.