What is the Colossal hurricane-like storm seen on Saturn?

Question

Is it part of the process of creating the rings maybe?

Answer 1

The Scientists don't know yet, so if they don't know we don't know. We can only guess to what it is.


Scientists said it was unclear whether Saturn's storm was a water-driven system.

It differs from Earth hurricanes in part because it remains stuck at the pole rather than drifting as such storms do on this planet and because it did not form over a liquid water ocean, with Saturn being a gaseous planet, NASA said.

"It looks like a hurricane, but it doesn't behave like a hurricane," Andrew Ingersoll, a member of Cassini's imaging team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a statement. "Whatever it is, we're going to focus on the eye of this storm and find out why it's there."

Flasar said scientists have more work ahead to understand the Saturn storm.

"I'm hoping that as we puzzle over it, it will become even more exciting as we start to connect the dots in our brains. But right now, the wheels are a little creaky," Flasar said. "We're all arguing with each other about what it might or might not be."

Answer 2

It is a hurricane-like storm at Saturn's south pole. The colossal storm, with a well-developed eye, marks the first time a truly hurricane-like storm has been detected on a planet other than Earth

Answer 3

ok, it probably IS a hurricane ...

difference is that there's not supposed to be water on Saturn, and water vapor moving inwardly over a liquid suface including temperature differences is what makes hurricanes...

SO, it may be a hurricane with a defined eye and eyewall surrounded by a rotating storm system, but since it's probably gaseous and formed and sustained by gases, it's not like any hurricane that we know...

also, it doesn't hurt to remember that it's about 2/3 the size of the Earth the next time we try to understand it in terms of hurricanes that we've had more experience with

Answer 4

It is a colossal hurricane like storm

Answer 5

It is a colossal hurricane-like storm.

Answer 6

it is a colossal hurricane like storm

Answer 7

It is simply a hurricane, the dust it carries makes it visible colour.

Answer 8

If you are thinking of the Great Red Spot, that actually is on Jupiter, not Saturn.

Storms DO occur on Saturn though they are more subtle and not nearly as long-lived.

Answer 9

A gate to/from Hell where Satan and his band of fallen angels will be released.

Answer 10

i think it is due yo the movement of gases due to pressure differences