Search

Saturn's Great White Spots are rare planetary-scale storms that have been observed only six times since 1876. The most recent Great White Spot appeared in December 2010 and has been studied from both ground-based and spacecraft observations. The storm developed into an enormous disturbance extending over 10,000 km at cloud level, emitted intense electrostatic discharges over several months, and caused long-standing localized warming in the high stratosphere of about 60 K. Here we analyse the dynamics of the storm's head using high-resolution imagery obtained by the Cassini spacecraft on 26 February 2011. We find strong winds with speeds up to 160 m s−1 and organized into a divergent open anticyclone where massive cumulus-like cloud clusters interact with the ambient zonal flow to generate a storm front. The cloud clusters evolved over a timescale of hours, with cloud tops reaching 44 km above the undisturbed environment. Simulations using a general circulation model, which includes Saturn's zonal winds, reproduce the observations when a persistent heat source is introduced, causing a high-pressure anomaly. We conclude that the complex phenomenology of a mature Great White Spot represents a natural response of the saturnian atmosphere to severe sustained convection in a sheared background flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]