– RIA News. The Cassini probe saw how a super-powerful hurricane on Saturn lifted a huge amount of water and ammonia into the upper atmosphere, which for the first time allowed scientists to test their hypotheses about the composition of different layers of the planet's atmosphere, according to an article by American scientists published in the journal Icarus.
Approximately once every 30 years or once in the Saturnian year, astronomers observe the appearance of giant hurricanes on Saturn. The last of them (and the sixth in the history of observations) was recorded in 2010, when even amateur astronomers were able to see on the planet's disk a giant white spot measuring 15 thousand kilometers – the trail of a hurricane.
The Cassini probe, which has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004, was able to make a series of measurements of the Great White Spot with the VIMS spectrometer and determine its composition.
'It is a multicomponent aerosol that consists mainly of ammonia ice with a large proportion of water ice. The third most important component, most likely ammonia hydrosulfide <…> According to the simulation results, the most likely composition is 55% ammonia ice, 22% water ice, and 23% ammonia hydrosulfide, 'says Lawrence Sromovski from the University of Wisconsin. -Madison and colleagues.
According to scientists, these substances were lifted by a hurricane from the lower layers of Saturn's atmosphere, which are inaccessible for observation due to the dense cloud cover above. During a hurricane, the speed of vertical air currents on Saturn can reach 480 kilometers per hour, and they get the opportunity to 'break through' dense clouds and come to the 'surface'.
Previously, scientists believed that Saturn's atmosphere was like a sandwich, consisting of a layer of water vapor at a depth of about 200 kilometers under the outer layer of clouds, a layer of ammonia hydrosulfide above it and ammonia clouds on top. This 'sandwich' is covered with a layer of opaque haze on top. Now they have received confirmation of this hypothesis and for the first time were able to assess the quantitative characteristics of the composition of different layers of the atmosphere.
