Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:33 pm by globalturbo
Interplanetary climate change: Rare, enormous gas storm detected on Saturn
Posted on October 26, 2012
October 26, 2012 – SPACE – NASA
says the Cassini spacecraft recorded the aftermath of a massive storm
on Saturn that let out an “unprecedented belch of energy.” Not only was
the size of the storm unusual, but what the storm was made of left
scientists puzzled. The source of the cosmic burp, which rapidly changed
the atmosphere’s temperature, was ethylene gas, an odorless, colorless
gas that has rarely been observed on Saturn, NASA said. “This temperature spike is so extreme, it’s almost unbelievable,”
said Brigette Hesman, the study’s lead author who works at Goddard. “To
get a temperature change of the same scale on Earth, you’d be going
from the depths of winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, to the height of summer
in the Mojave Desert,” Hesman said in a statement released by NASA.
Scientists still haven’t figured out where the ethylene gas came from.
By comparison, a storm of similar size on Earth would cover North
America from top to bottom and wrap the planet many times, researchers
said. The Cassini spacecraft first detected the disruption on December
5, 2010, and has been following it since, but researchers said the
ethylene gas disruption that followed the storm was unexpected. A storm
this size happens once every 30 years, or once every Saturn year, NASA
scientists said. Launched in 1997, the Cassini-Huygens mission is a
cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian
Space Agency. A full report will be published in November’s issue of the
Astrophysical Journal. –CNN
Thanks to: http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com
Posted on October 26, 2012
October 26, 2012 – SPACE – NASA
says the Cassini spacecraft recorded the aftermath of a massive storm
on Saturn that let out an “unprecedented belch of energy.” Not only was
the size of the storm unusual, but what the storm was made of left
scientists puzzled. The source of the cosmic burp, which rapidly changed
the atmosphere’s temperature, was ethylene gas, an odorless, colorless
gas that has rarely been observed on Saturn, NASA said. “This temperature spike is so extreme, it’s almost unbelievable,”
said Brigette Hesman, the study’s lead author who works at Goddard. “To
get a temperature change of the same scale on Earth, you’d be going
from the depths of winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, to the height of summer
in the Mojave Desert,” Hesman said in a statement released by NASA.
Scientists still haven’t figured out where the ethylene gas came from.
By comparison, a storm of similar size on Earth would cover North
America from top to bottom and wrap the planet many times, researchers
said. The Cassini spacecraft first detected the disruption on December
5, 2010, and has been following it since, but researchers said the
ethylene gas disruption that followed the storm was unexpected. A storm
this size happens once every 30 years, or once every Saturn year, NASA
scientists said. Launched in 1997, the Cassini-Huygens mission is a
cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian
Space Agency. A full report will be published in November’s issue of the
Astrophysical Journal. –CNN
Thanks to: http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com
