Summer Storms are Blowin on Titan

Computer models have long predicted the onset of storms in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has finally been able to capture these storm clouds over Titan's  northern sea  Ligeia Mare.  The storm being tracked was producing very Earthlike winds of  7 to 10 mph.

Storm clouds have been documented on Titan's southern latitudes since Cassini arrived in 2004, during Titan's summer in the lower latitudes.  But until 2010 when Titan entered summer in the northern latitude, no clouds had been seen until now.

The picture here was obtained in July 2014 as Cassini receded from Titan after a close flyby.

I would hazard a guess that most of us suffer from hubris when thinking of a Titan year being analogous to a Luna year here on Earth. (for those of you scratching your head and saying umm luna year is the same as Earths because it travels around the Sun with us...well no...a "year" is one orbit around the primary by a secondary or satellite.  Luna year apx. 29 days) Titans year however is 30 Earth years and a season is about 7 EYs.   Wow do you start to get the scale of things out in the gas giant arena?   Luna orbits Earth so fast because it is so freakishly close!

You can read the rest of the Astronomy Magazine article HERE



http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/08/cassini-tracks-clouds-developing-over-a-titan-sea

Fossilized Rain Drops?!

Here is a new one paleoclimatologists. The study of ancient even prehistoric weather. Not from a few hundred or a few thousand years either....Try on Billions for a fit! Long before there were people, or dinosaurs or for that matter even microbes, the earth had weather, and weather means rain. Paleoclimatologists have used fossilized raindrops to figure out what kind of atmosphere our planet used to have. Wait, back up a few here.... fossilized whaaaa?
So this is when they point out that rain drops in fact Can Not fossilize but if conditions are right, the impact that the drop makes when it hits the ground WILL in fact cause a fossilization event. Those conditions require an ongoing volcanic event that is regularly depositioning fine layers of ash. It has to rain soon after an event and then the volcano needs to lay a fine layer over the rain drops. All of this effort to figure out what kind of atmosphere our planet used to have.

Check out the pic above for what the ancient rain drops look like fossilized and here is the link to the Dvice article

Atmospheric "Gravity" waves

Intelectually we know that the atmosphere is a fluid. In wind we can feel it acting in this nature, but seeing large structures moving in a fluidic nature, are not often possible. An Atmospheric "Gravity" wave is a manifestation of ripples in the air mass as opposed to the air column which is more what thunder storms, tornadoes and hurricanes do. Under the right conditions, these waves can be observed. From the Berkley Edu site:

• Gravity waves are the oscillations of air parcels by the lifting force of bouyancy and the restoring force of gravity. These waves propagate vertically as well as horizontally, and actively transport energy and momentum from the troposphere to the middle and upper atmosphere. Gravity waves are caused by a variety of sources, including the passage of wind across terrestrial landforms, interaction at the velocity shear of the polar jet stream and radiation incident from space. They are found to affect atmospheric tides in the middle atmosphere and terrestrial weather in the lower atmosphere.
  

And your asking, how is this science fiction related. As I have been saying all along, good science fiction is based in good science and the observation of how the natural order of things work. Seeing this video, you can almost imaging extrapolating it into an alien environment with a heavy atmosphere, plus a whole order of other strangeness.

Click on the play button to see an effect that I suspect that you have never observed. Its quite facinating.



Thanks to Kim Komando's video of the day

<- Berkley site on Gravity waves ->

Jupiter Grows Third Red Spot

Shaun sends in a fascinating article from Foxnews concerning curious weather manifestations on Jupiter. Its' well known Red Spot has had a smaller companion that was first observed in 2006.
The Little Red Spot, as it was named, shows both size and speed in threatening to knock the former champion off its perch, with Junior's maximum winds reaching 384 mph.

Now Little Red has been joined by a "smaller" companion. What is even more curious is the newer storms are not quite what they seem.

Thermal heat images showed that the Little Red Spot may already match the Great Red Spot for size, although the latter still appears almost twice as large on the surface of Jupiter's atmosphere when examined in visible light. Little Red Spot appears to be part of an interacting system that is actually larger than the Great Red Spot. The Little Red Spot has steadily gained strength even as the Big Red Spot shrinks. Astronomers remain mystified by the angry red color of the storms. The Little Red Spot only changed color in late 2005 after it formed from earlier mergers of three smaller storms. The newest third red spot began as an oval white storm.

Some have speculated that the increase in activity indicates that Jupiter is experiencing a warming trend and the additional energy may be causing more and more violent storms.

Dust Storms May be Causing Global Warming

Scientists have been studying dust storms now for decades. They have determined that these storms has contributed greatly to global warming and the drastic shrinking of the planet's polar ice caps. But are we talking about Earth? No, Mars!

Computer simulations similar to those used to predict weather here on Earth show that the bright, windblown dust and sand particles affects Mars’ albedo—the amount of sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface. The research, detailed in the April 5 issue of the journal Nature, suggests these albedo variations play an important role in the climate of Mars. It could also potentially explain how global dust storms are triggered on the red planet.

Shaun Saunders sent this in saying that this ties in well with other articles posted here earlier on similar subject matter.

Bizarre Hexagon Spotted on Saturn

One of the most bizarre weather patterns known has been photographed at Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature circling the north pole.

Rather than the normally sinuous cloud structures seen on all planets that have atmospheres, this thing is a hexagon.

The honeycomb-like feature has been seen before. NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged it more than two decades ago. Now, having spotted it with the Cassini spacecraft, scientists conclude it is a long-lasting oddity.

he hexagon is nearly 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it. The thermal imagery shows the hexagon extends about 60 miles (100 kilometers) down into the clouds.

At Saturn's south pole, Cassini recently spotted a freaky human eye-like feature that resembles a hurricane.

The hexagon appears to have remained fixed with Saturn's rotation rate and axis since first glimpsed by Voyager 26 years ago. The actual rotation rate of Saturn is still uncertain, which means nobody knows exactly how long the planet's day is.

submitted by Shaun Saunders