Saturn Vortex of Epic Proportions

[guest]

F5 tornadoes and Cat 5 Hurricanes now bow down to Saturn's great vortex:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061109/sc_nm/space_saturn_dc_1

[B Ozanne]

Scale Saturn down to the size of Earth and the vortex in my bathroom drain looks more impressive.

Not to mention, my Dyson vacuum cleaner spins air at like 20 billion mph. That's right...billion!

Does anyone know the air pressure and temperature on Saturn? If so I can do a quick calculation to compare it to winds on earth's surface.

[Saul Trabal]

LOL, I'm usually the one who starts topics like this! :D

B Ozanne, you really can't make comparisons between Earth and Saturn the way you wish. Keep in mind-Saturn most likely doesn't have a surface. As you get deeper and deeper, the air pressure rises tremendously, until the atmosphere merges into the hellish global ocean of liquid hydrogen that makes up most of the planet.

The temperatures vary tremendously around the planet. Near the top of the atmosphere, temperatures are probably near -300 degrees Fahrenheit. Below the clouds, the temperatures may raise to several thousand degrees. This vast difference in temperatures may be the reason Saturn's winds can reach over 1,000 mph, as well as monster thunderstorms like the Dragon Storm in Saturn's southern hemisphere, which is half the size of the Earth. Lightning on Saturn is anywhere from 1,000 times to 1 million times more powerful than the Earth's.

There are similarities between the two planets, but there are way more differences than similarities.

[B Ozanne]

There are similarities between the two planets, but there are way more differences than similarities.

That's exactly my point. Saturn is over 750 times larger than earth. Scaled down to earth that storm is less than 7 miles wide. The eyes of earth's hurricanes could swallow that storm whole.

[Scott A. Kampas]

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn10499-spectacular-storm-rages-on-saturns-south-pole.html

Click for animation:
http://space.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn10499/dn10499-1_600.jpg (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/PIA08332_full_movie.mpg)

[Bart_Comstock]

NASA has some interesting shots of the storm up on there site. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia08333.html
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=703

After watching the video clip of the storm and then seeing some water spiral down into the drain of my sink I cam to this conclusion; maybe Saturn is really God's toilet and he is just flushing it.