The Terrifying Look on the Storms of Saturn

You can see the humungous storm on saturn in the Northern hemisphere. Credit: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA12826.jpg

Saturn is the 2nd largest planet after Jupiter and it may look beautiful through a telescope but it can display some ugly and terrifying storms. The image above for example shows a famous storm on Saturn located in the Northern hemisphere. This storm has been ongoing since 2010 and has left a huge tail that almost circles the entire planet. To give you an idea that’s 300,000 km which is 25x wider than Earth! Actually new data was just released today about the new findings on that storm. It turns out that deep within Saturn below its thick atmosphere is ice water, ammonia ice, and a third unknown which possibly could be hydrosulfide. Now the storms on Saturn work similarly to our puny storms on Earth. Think about thunder storms where water vapor are pushed high into the atmosphere where it results into towering billowing clouds. That’s what happens on Saturn except it’s 10-20x taller and wind speeds of 500 km per hour! These storms happen once every 30 years or once every Saturn year. It’s a great time to be observing these storms to understand more about how they act on a much larger scale. Jupiter has similar storms like these but nothing quite to this size.

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Here’s more images for your pleasure.

A close up on Saturn’s storm. Credit: NASA

A closer look at Saturn’s storm.

A scary look at the eye of the storm on Saturn. Credit: NASA

This is a different storm that is located on Saturn’s North pole. It’s a monster that is about 2,000 km wide. Things are starting to look scary. Let’s take a step back to see it in context.

This massive storm on the North pole of Saturn is at least 2,000 km wide. Credit: NASA

A much larger view of the storm located on Saturn’s North pole. It actually has a hexagonal shape which is very unique.

A massive storm at the pole of Saturn. Credit: NASA/Cassini

This image shows you a little of how the storm is swirling around.