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Monday, August 29, 2011

Extraterrestrial Hurricanes: The Most Monstrous Storms Happen in Space

Saturn Storm

Carolyn Porco and CICLOPS; NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

An image of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft shows a storm with a latitudinal and longitudinal extent of 10,000 km and 17,000 km, respectively. The latitudinal extent of the storm’s head is approximately the distance from London to Cape Town. A "tail" emerging from its southern edge extends further eastward.

By Earth standards, Hurricane Irene is a monster storm. But it's just a baby compared to the massive cyclones of Jupiter and Saturn.

Our planet is not the only one in the solar system that boasts huge, hurricane-like storms. The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, for example, churn out spinning squalls that can be bigger than the entire Earth. While these storms aren't fed by warm ocean water the way terrestrial hurricanes are, they're similar in a lot of ways, scientists say.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/29/extraterrestrial-hurricanes-most-monstrous-storms-happen-in-space/#ixzz1WQuUmAPJ

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