Above and Beyond: A Hurricane on Saturn

 

 

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach.

 

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA, ESA, and STScI except:

 

·       Amateur image of 2009 impact site on Jupiter courtesy of Anthony Wesley

·       Gemini North Telescope image of 2009 impact site on Jupiter courtesy of Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Heidi B. Hammel (Space Science Institute), Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Gemini Observatory/AURA

·       Taurus constellation drawing from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, courtesy of the United States Naval Observatory

·       1879 photo of Jupiter and Great Red Spot from A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century by Agnes M. Clerk (1885)

·       2014 image of Jupiter and Great Red Spot courtesy of Damian Peach

·       Infrared images of Uranus from Keck Observatory courtesy of Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley)/Keck Observatory

·       Animation showing axial tilts of solar system planets courtesy of Steven Sanders, Eastern University

·       Animation comparing axial tilts of Earth and Uranus courtesy of Steven Sanders, Eastern University

 

 

Written by Vanessa Thomas

Designed by Marc Lussier

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

 

 

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 [PIANO MUSIC] 

(DESCRIPTION) 
 A spiral swirl of violet gas clouds. 

Text, A colossal hurricane whirls around Saturn's north pole. 

The eye of this hurricane is over a thousand miles across-- 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. 

Clouds at the edge of the maelstrom whip around at more than 300 miles per hour. 

The giant hurricane was hidden in darkness until 2009, when spring arrived to Saturn's northern hemisphere. 

It could have been raging for many years.