http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/30/content_8083354.htm
Monster Saturn electrical storm longest on record
BEIJING, April 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The longest running electrical storm on
Saturn recorded by scientists is creating lightning bolts 10,000 times more
powerful than any seen on Earth.
The monster storm appeared in Saturn's southern hemisphere five months ago,
when it was first spotted by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and has persevered to
become the planet's longest continuously recorded tempest to date.
"We saw similar storms in 2004 and 2006 that each lasted for nearly a
month, but this storm is longer-lived by far," said Georg Fischer, an associate
with Cassini's radio and plasma wave science team at the University of Iowa,
Iowa City, in a statement. "And it appeared after nearly two years during which
we did not detect any electrical storm activity from Saturn."
Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument first picked up signals
from the storm's lightning bursts on Nov. 27, 2007, with the probe's cameras
catching their first visual glimpse on Dec. 6. Images of the storm show it as a
smudge on Saturn's otherwise creamy cloud bands.
Electrical storms on Saturn are similar to thunderstorms on Earth, but much
larger. They can span thousands of miles and generate radio bursts from
lightning that can be thousands of times more powerful than Earthly lightning
bolts, said mission scientists, who named a massive lightning storm in 2004
"Dragon."
Researchers hope that by tracking the Saturnian weather, they may gain new
insights into the processes behind the planet's lightning, as well as how it
changes as the seasons shift from summer to autumn in Saturn's southern
hemisphere.
"In order to see the storm, the imaging cameras have to be looking at the
right place at the right time, and whenever our cameras see the storm, the
radio outbursts are there," said Ulyana Dyudina, a Cassini imaging team
associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.
Cassini's onboard instruments have tracked the storm every 10 hours and 40
minutes, when Saturn's rotation brings it into view, though amateur astronomers
are also watching over the tempest from Earth.
(Agencies)
Editor: Gareth Dodd
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