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A storm in the atmosphere of the planet Saturn that happens only about once every 30 years has been captured in more detail than has ever been possible before. The European Southern Observatory (ESO's) Very Large Telescope (VLT) has teamed up with NASA's Cassini spacecraft to study the dramatic planet-wide disturbance that occurs about once every Saturn year (about 30 Earth years). The results are in the journal Science (19 May 2011).

"This disturbance in the northern hemisphere of Saturn has created a gigantic, violent and complex eruption of bright cloud material, which has spread to encircle the entire planet", explains Leigh Fletcher (University of Oxford, UK), lead author of the new study.

The atmosphere of the planet Saturn normally appears placid and calm but as spring comes to the northern hemisphere of the giant planet, something stirs deep below the clouds. This is only the sixth of these huge storms to be spotted since 1876. The storm was first detected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft and also tracked by amateur astronomers before being studied in detail using the VLT in conjunction with observations from Cassini. It is the first ever to be studied in the thermal infrared, allowing the variations of temperature within a Saturnian storm to be detected.

STFC allows UK astronomers access to ESO's telescopes through a subscription. RAL Space (link opens in a new window) at STFC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has been involved in the KMOS instrument on the VLT, through the optical design of the spectrographs and the assembly of the camera barrels.

Further information

Images

Further details, including available images, can be found in ESO's press release (link opens in a new window). Images of the E-ELT are available in ESO's image archive (link opens in a new window).