Posted on 02/14/2014 12:47:21 AM PST by Windflier
You're looking at a newly released 8-frame movie of Saturn's enigmatic "hexagon." It is the highest-resolution footage ever acquired of the massive six-sided maelstrom atop the ringed planet's north pole, and boy howdy is it gorgeous.
For the uninitiated, Saturn's uncannily symmetric cloud system measures roughly 20,000-miles across, and is utterly unique in our solar system. Its dimensions and dynamics are just bizarre.
At the hexagon's center whirls a tightly wound hurricane roughly fifty-times larger than the average hurricane-eye on Earth.
About it spins an assortment of smaller vortices, caught up in the hexagon's jet stream, that rotate clockwise, even as the central hurricane, and the outer hexagon, rotate in the opposite direction. The largest of the smaller vortices, appearing white in the lower right corner of the hexagon, spans about 2,200 miles – roughly twice the size of Earth's largest hurricanes.
(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...
Either that, or the position of Mars relative to the telescope observing it could be an explanation. One sometimes sees hexagonal optical illusions in photographs where there is strong sunlight. The curved camera lens "sees" them, but not the naked eye.
Thanks for the reply. I thought of that, but I also figured Saturn must have SOME kind of atmosphere, which WOULD conduct soundwaves. If you can assure me that the planet is totally bereft of ANY atmosphere, the noise idea goes away, and I feel like a smacked kiester.
You’re assuming that the planet Saturn has NO atmosphere. See my reply to others. Thanks for yours.
The rings aren’t in the atmosphere.
This is a follow-up to ANGGAPO and bitterohiogunclinger who questioned whether there is sound on Saturn “because space is a vacuum.” Below is a link, and an excerpt from what I found there. I found it interesting that there are 1800 kph winds on Saturn. The idea that those winds are silent gives me brain cramps. I found 2 links with audio from the Cassini Spacecraft of the noise from Saturn’s rings. The cherry on top is: Saturn is a GAS GIANT, so it MUST have an atmosphere, which it does.
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Saturn_s_atmosphere
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38pJhxCzR-I
http://www.howitworksdaily.com/space/the-sound-of-saturns-rings/
SATURN’S ATMOSPHERE
Saturn is approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium with traces of other substances like methane and water ice.
Saturn’s atmosphere, although similar to Jupiter’s, is much less interesting to look at from a distance. But enhanced-colour images (shown above) allow us to study the bands across which run parallel to the equator much like Jupiter’s, indicating violent winds.
Saturn is one of the windiest places in the Solar System, and wind speeds have been clocked at a staggering 1800 kilometres per hour at the equator. Occasionally, violent ‘white’ storms break through the cloud layers, each one bigger than Earth. The last of these was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in 1994. Smaller storms occur as darker spots, and have been shown in recent Cassini-Huygens images.
It’s not that Saturn has no atmosphere, it’s that the spacecraft is flying where there is no atmosphere, hence it’s not recording noise. If you dig into the sources for all the alleged “sounds of space” videos you will find that all are radio waves or plasma wave recordings electronically converted to audio.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/features/halloween_sounds.html
Thanks Squawk 8888, extra to APoD.
FYI: pings..
um... there is no sound in space because their is no medium for the sound waves to travel in. The sound track should not be on this video at all it is just random noise
Richard Hoagland says it is the result of hyper-dimensional torsion field physics.
Saturn has an atmosphere like any other planet. If the sound track of that video isn’t actually the noise of the rings, NASA is guilty of misleading their viewers. I think since Saturn is a gas giant, it probably has a proportionally higher altitude atmospheric limit than terrestrial ones.
But we can agree to disagree. I do plan to research further and find the entire story of Saturn and her ambiance.
Blessings on your weekend
Oooops! My bad. The audio on the Cassini video is RADIO emissions.
Gotta’ give you that one. Still going to keep searching for audible noise on Saturn because of what I read on a NASA site years ago.
I can’t find what I was looking for so I’ll concede the point for the time being. Although the only references I could find re “sound” was radio emissions.
However, 2 things keep me looking. 1. One of the articles stated that the rings are composed of 98% ice particles ranging in size from sand to a mountain. That cannot help but make NOISE as these objects rattle and bang and scrape against one another.
2. The other is the statement that although the outer edge of the rings extends thousands of kilometers out into space, the inner edge is only a few meters from the discernable “surface” of the gas giant.
Therefore I maintain that if one could physically position himself anywhere near the planet, above or below the plane of the rings, they’d better be wearing shooters’ ear protection, because those rings are making a heck of a racket!
It has been a pleasure, Sir.
I can’t find what I was looking for so I’ll concede the point for the time being. Although the only references I could find re “sound” was radio emissions.
However, 2 things keep me looking. 1. One of the articles stated that the rings are composed of 98% ice particles ranging in size from sand to a mountain. That cannot help but make NOISE as these objects rattle and bang and scrape against one another.
2. The other is the statement that although the outer edge of the rings extends thousands of kilometers out into space, the inner edge is only a few meters from the discernable “surface” of the gas giant.
Therefore I maintain that if one could physically position himself anywhere near the planet, above or below the plane of the rings, they’d better be wearing shooters’ ear protection, because those rings are making a heck of a racket!
It has been a pleasure, Sir.
You have to understand what ‘sound’ is- it is pressure waves at different frequencies.
If you were in space and banged two rocks together you would not hear a thing, because there is no atmoshpere to convey the pressure waves.
Ten four. I dig it. But as I said in my concession reply. I’m not talking about out in the vacuum of space. I’ve said from the get-go, down at the “surface” of the planet the din is horrendous. The inner “edge” of the rings is only a few meters from the “surface” and according to NASA the atmosphere extends out to thousands of kilometers. Don’t tell me there’s silence down near the planet. There’s one helluva racket going on down there.
Blessings.
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