Strange vortex discovered on Saturn moon Titan

[shogun]

A NASA spacecraft has spied a vortex swirling in the atmosphere high above the south pole of the Saturn moon Titan, hinting that winter may be coming to the huge body's southern reaches.
NASA's Cassini probe photographed the polar vortex — or mass of swirling gas — during a flyby of Titan on June 27. The vortex appears to complete one full rotation in nine hours, while it takes Titan about 16 days to spin once around its axis.

"The structure inside the vortex is reminiscent of the open cellular convection that is often seen over Earth's oceans," Tony Del Genio, a Cassini team member at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said in a statement.


"But unlike on Earth, where such layers are just above the surface, this one is at very high altitude, maybe a response of Titan's stratosphere to seasonal cooling as southern winter approaches," he added. "But so soon in the game, we're not sure." [ Gallery: Amazing Titan Photos ]
When Cassini arrived at the Saturn system in 2004, Titan — which is 3,200 miles wide — had a vortex and a visible "hood" of relatively dense haze high above its north pole. It was winter there until Saturn's August 2009 equinox, which marked the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southern reaches of the planet and its many moons.
While Titan's northern hood still remains, the circulation in the upper atmosphere has been moving from the warming north pole to the cooling south, researchers said. This shift appears to be causing downwellings over Titan's south pole, along with the formation of high-altitude haze and a vortex there.
Cassini's cameras first noticed the nascent southern hazes in March, and the spacecraft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument (VIMS) captured false-color images on May 22 and June 7.

"VIMS has seen a concentration of aerosols forming about 200 miles above the surface of Titan's south pole," said Christophe Sotin, a VIMS team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen aerosols here at this level before, so we know this is something new."

Cassini scientists will keep a close eye on Titan's south pole for further developments, which could shed light on the moon's complex, methane-based weather system.
"Future observations of this feature will provide good tests of dynamical models of the Titan circulation, chemistry, cloud and aerosol processes in the upper atmosphere," said Bob West, Cassini deputy imaging team lead at JPL.
Polar vortices aren't uncommon in our solar system. They've also been observed on Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Earth and Venus, researchers said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48142498/ns ... nce-space/

[sMASH]

interesting.

[X2]

Can someone explain why we have imax cameras, 3d movies, digital cameras so cheap that anyone can own one.... HD video and more... and this is the sh*t video quality we get from something in space ?

Is it the transmission time over the distance ?

[r3iXmann]

Can someone explain why we have imax cameras, 3d movies, digital cameras so cheap that anyone can own one.... HD video and more... and this is the sh*t video quality we get from something in space ?

Is it the transmission time over the distance ?

it's usually scaled down quite a lot


though i'm not sure if the fact that these things are kinda old (it takes a while to reach saturn ) might have something to do with it

[TriP]

[X2]

You tube has videos of fat kids falling down shot with a 10 year old camera phone that are higher quality that what we are seeing here.... and they spent MILLIONS to send a probe with this ?




I don't know how they are sending the data, but I would think it would be important to see what you are actually looking at... scaled down ? why suppress the full detail ?

[wagonrunner]

I don't know how they are sending the data, but I would think it would be important to see what you are actually looking at... scaled down ? why suppress the full detail ?

no DSL or fiber optic hard lines could be the reason for compression.
It may more be important to get the data, than try to d/load BR quality on 1400baud.

[X2]

^^ Oh please... if 20 years ago, them nerds used to wait 30 mins to download a crappy scan of boobies... they can download some clean video from saturn in 2012.

[Trini Hookah]

X2 mussbe think there's Bzone/Digi 4G in space.

Yuh feel is like long time?....wait...

[KURMAman]

I don't know how they are sending the data, but I would think it would be important to see what you are actually looking at... scaled down ? why suppress the full detail ?

no DSL or fiber optic hard lines could be the reason for compression.
It may more be important to get the data, than try to d/load BR quality on 1400baud.

x2.
The main objective is to collect the data from something that will most likely never malfunction. Old tech was found to be very dependable and rugged...jus imagine how much times ur new phone freeze up for no reason.......now imagine that happening 1.2 billon km away......transmitting data back to earth is in itself ridiculous. Imagine it takes just over 3 years for a spacecraft and maximum know speeds to reach there. Also, this data is from a satellite, while alot of high quality images we see are from observing telescopes on Earth.

[bonzo.specb]

Intriguing.

[MG Man]

X2, those probes run on very little power..........as in minuscule power.............so everything used to collect, transmit and receive data has to run on tiny amounts of power as well..........this is one of the reasons for low res images and vids...........plus as was said before, 'bandwidth' is an issue......transmissions need to be kept very simple...added to that, weight is also a major factor....you need to break orbit, then push that mass across vast distances.......more mass, more power is required to move it........hence pack light.....
Finally, video camers are not the only payload on those probes...........all sorts of scanners etc hvae to fight for payload space...........so it's not as simple as putting on a nicer camera

[silent_riot]

OMG Decepticons.

[nareshseep]

1iphone

[stev]

what MG said and you have to account for losses in transmission. such as the improper reordering of data stream when it reaches earth.

[sMASH]

lolz, imagine pinging those probes... but, i can't help thinking that they could point hubble at titan if they get a line of sight...

they ration milliwatts like scrooge mc duck.

[MG Man]

I think they prefer to use Hubble for things that are further away.......edge of universe biz

[stev]

lolz, imagine pinging those probes... but, i can't help thinking that they could point hubble at titan if they get a line of sight...

they ration milliwatts like scrooge mc duck.

NASA:\>ping voyager1

Pinging voyager1 with 32 bytes of data:

Ping Statistics for voyager1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% Loss),
Appropriate round trip time in hours:
Minimum = 15hrs, Maximum = 17hrs, Average = 16hrs

NASA:\>ping voyager1

[Soundwave]

OMG Decepticons.

fcuk you, is everything alyuh goh blame we for...

[sMASH]

stev (the other e is invisible) ping de ting and led the decepticons right to it!!!!!!!!!!!!




sound wave, search and destroy....

[MG Man]

OMG Decepticons.

fcuk you, is everything alyuh goh blame we for...

[psykomorf]

Maybe distance and lighting issues also?
from http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=247
"The images were taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera late on June 26 just before closest approach of the moon and early on June 27 as the spacecraft flew away from the moon. Each frame is separated by approximately one hour. The distance varies between 286,000 miles (461,000 kilometers) and 301,000 miles (484,000 kilometers), but the images were cropped and scaled to an image scale of 2 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel. The phase angle, or sun-Titan-spacecraft angle, decreases with time, from 111 degrees at the beginning to 95 degrees at the end. "

from http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/cassiniorbiterinstruments/instrumentscassiniiss/
"At the heart of each camera is a charged coupled device (CCD) detector consisting of a 1024 square array of pixels, each 12 microns on a side. The data system allows many options for data collection, including choices for on-chip summing and data compression. The narrow-angle camera packs plenty of power too, and could see a quarter -- 2.4 centimeters (0.9 inches) across -- from a distance of nearly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles)."

some more (and better) pics from the same probe here http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/halloffame/

[stev]

so many threads about space......shud all be merged

[rfari]

Wow. Not bad

[RIPEBREDFRUIT]

UNiversal Warming?

[silent_riot]

OMG Decepticons.

fcuk you, is everything alyuh goh blame we for...

Oh yeah? Wait till Optimus hears about this...we'll see who's fcuked.

[stev]

OMG Decepticons.

fcuk you, is everything alyuh goh blame we for...

Oh yeah? Wait till Optimus hears about this...we'll see who's fcuked.

saw optimus parked outside dads dan if u looking for him

[shufflin']

OMG Decepticons.

fcuk you, is everything alyuh goh blame we for...

Oh yeah? Wait till Optimus hears about this...we'll see who's fcuked.

saw optimus parked outside dads dan if u looking for him

last time i checked workers at dads dan doh play wit toys or anything mechanical




wait whut?