Friday, April 30, 2010

On Saturn, Do We Have Blizzards


Blizzards that's right, on Saturn. And these storms are so huge they can be seen from Earth by amateur astronomers! Data received from the orbiting Cassini spacecraft showed a large, turbulent storm, covering an area at least five times larger than the biggest blizzard that hit Earth so far this year.

Amateur astronomers are particularly useful to NASA because of the nature of the Cassini probe, it must be aligned to take readings months in advance, where as with amateurs they can reposition their equipment in minutes and take highly sophisticated pictures and data readings.

Amateurs from such diverse locals as Australia and the Philippines have been sending in pictures that give NASA a clue as to just how violent these storms are. Cassini showed that ultra-violent storms were taking place about 250 miles deep in Saturn's massive atmosphere.
lightning has been observed in the clouds tops which are comprised mostly of water and ammonia.

Read complete Yahoo News article here

Thanks again to Tim Sayell

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