Giant Blizzard Raging on Saturn

[n2doc]

SPACE.com Staff

SPACE.com – Fri Apr 30, 12:16 pm ET
A massive blizzard is raging on Saturn — a storm so large and fierce NASA astronomers and amateur skywatchers can see it from Earth.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn has a front row seat to the otherworldly tempest and is recording the most detailed data yet of storms on the ringed planet. But amateur astronomers back on Earth have also managed to chip in on the Saturn blizzard stormwatch.

"We were so excited to get a heads-up from the amateurs," said Cassini scientist Gordon Bjoraker, a composite infrared spectrometer team member based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The data showed a large, turbulent storm, dredging up a lot of material from the deep atmosphere and covering an area at least five times larger than the biggest blizzard that hit Earth so far this year — the "Snowmageddon" storm that blanketed the Washington, D.C. area in snow in February.

more

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100430/sc_space/giantblizzardragingonsaturn

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/giant-blizzard-saturn-100429.html

[WheelWalker]

1. Any idea

what that dot is, visible above the left edge of the ring?

[PSPS]

4. I suppose it's one of Saturn's moons ... it has at least 62 of them!

Interactive map of Saturn's moons: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/moons/

[foxfeet]

2. Do the Saturnians have to tie a rope to themselves

so they don't get lost on the way from the house to the barn?

[WheelWalker]

3. Hopefully, they've got indoor plumbing...

[1620rock]

5. I would guess the dot is a star or one of Saturn's moons.