Cassini images Saturn storm

Abstract

The Cassini spacecraft has spotted an 8000‐kilometer‐wide, hurricane‐like storm around Saturn's South Pole, NASA announced on 9 November. The storm has a dark ‘eye’ at the South Pole along with eye‐wall clouds and spiral arms, but it is not known if moist convection—the driver of hurricanes on Earth—drives the Saturn storm. A movie taken by Cassini's camera indicates that the winds are blowing clockwise at about 560 kilometers per hour. Although large storms have been observed on other planets in the past—most notably, Jupiter's Great Red Spot—this is the first storm found to have eye‐wall clouds and a relatively calm center.