Scientists: Saturn has rainstorms of ammonia lasting hundreds of years
Using radio telescope data of Saturn scientists now believe that the big storm first detected in 2011 produced rainstorms of ammonia which are expected to last hundreds of years.
As reported in the new study, de Pater, Li and UC Berkeley graduate student Chris Moeckel found something surprising in the radio emissions from the planet: anomalies in the concentration of ammonia gas in the atmosphere, which they connected to the past occurrences of megastorms in the planet’s northern hemisphere.
According to the team, the concentration of ammonia is lower at midaltitudes, just below the uppermost ammonia-ice cloud layer, but has become enriched at lower altitudes, 100 to 200 kilometers deeper in the atmosphere. They believe that the ammonia is being transported from the upper to the lower atmosphere via the processes of precipitation and reevaporation. What’s more, that effect can last for hundreds of years. [emphasis mine]
In other words, Saturn has an ammonia cycle similar to the water cycle on Earth.
Need I add that this study carries great uncertainties, and that the amount of data about Saturn’s interior and atmosphere is sparse, at best?
Using radio telescope data of Saturn scientists now believe that the big storm first detected in 2011 produced rainstorms of ammonia which are expected to last hundreds of years.
As reported in the new study, de Pater, Li and UC Berkeley graduate student Chris Moeckel found something surprising in the radio emissions from the planet: anomalies in the concentration of ammonia gas in the atmosphere, which they connected to the past occurrences of megastorms in the planet’s northern hemisphere.
According to the team, the concentration of ammonia is lower at midaltitudes, just below the uppermost ammonia-ice cloud layer, but has become enriched at lower altitudes, 100 to 200 kilometers deeper in the atmosphere. They believe that the ammonia is being transported from the upper to the lower atmosphere via the processes of precipitation and reevaporation. What’s more, that effect can last for hundreds of years. [emphasis mine]
In other words, Saturn has an ammonia cycle similar to the water cycle on Earth.
Need I add that this study carries great uncertainties, and that the amount of data about Saturn’s interior and atmosphere is sparse, at best?