The Cassini tomography team released today a near - true - colouration icon and a movie taken during a flyby of Saturn ’s synodic month Titan on June 27 , 2012 by the Cassini spacecraft . The ikon let on a swirling , eddy vortex mould high in the standard pressure overlying the south pole of Titan , Saturn ’s great moon , as the moon ’s southern hemisphere slowly becomes engulfed in the darkness of rich autumn . The south rod of Titan ( 3,200 miles across ) is near the center of the view . Scientists have long known that the entire winter hemisphere of Titan can exhibit a polar “ hood ” of haze made of condensing organic chemical compound , but this is something new and amazing .
Top image : Ron Miller .
Ever since Cassini arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 , Titan has had a seeable “ hood ” mellow above the north pole . It was northern wintertime at Cassini ’s arrival , and much of the high northern latitudes were in darkness . But the bonnet , an orbit of denser , gamy EL haze compared to the eternal sleep of the moon ’s standard atmosphere , was high enough to be still illuminated by sunlight . The season have been change since Saturn ’s August 2009 equinox signaled the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southerly hemisphere for the planet and its many moons . Now the gamy southerly latitudes are moving into dark .
The organization of the vortex at Titan ’s south pole may be related to the coming southern winter and the start of what will be a south polar hood .
Some scientists remember these new images show open cell convection . In undecided cell , air cesspool in the center of the jail cell and rises at the boundary , forming clouds at prison cell edges . However , because the scientist ca n’t see the level underneath the layer visible in these new images , they do n’t know precisely what mechanisms may be at work .
The Cassini team suspects that this maelstrom , clear spring now over the south pole and whirl more than forty time faster than the synodic month ’s self-colored body , may be a precursor of what will at long last become a south gelid hood as fall there turns to winter . The image displays the apparent motion and beautifully detailed cloud patterns — very in all probability the final result of open - cadre convection — already seeable in this enthralling phenomenon that we on Cassini have been fortunate to charm , for the first meter , in the process of being bear .
More info at the link . [ CICLOPS ]
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