| North Tropical Storm evolution from 2010.12.20 to 2010.12.30 by M.Delcroix |
Here is my second analysis of the images of this incredible storm till end of 2010
The storm evolved very rapidly. As soon as Dec. 22nd, in the splendid hi-res image of A.Wesley details appear, showing a bright core elongated in longitude, separated into 3 zones, one bright, one bluish and a second bright zone. North East of this zone, the storm shows the birth of a tail in a bright yellowish spot (WS6), followed by a long tail extending to the east (almost 50° in longitude) with 2 other bright spots WS5 and WS4, and two faint spots WS3 and WS2.
These spots can be followed on the best next images, WS2 and WS3 being more difficult to image though. The Cassini probe in 2 sessions offered us a very nice view of the western and eastern part of the zone, showing how complex the tail is and the 3 lobes morphology of the brightest part.
Only 8 rotations later, two others hi-res images from A. Wesley again show how the tail as been elongated to the east, and how the bright part drifted to the west while spreading. At this date the whole zone is spread over 100° in longitude (System III), that is around 100 000 km long (and 10 000 km in latitude) !
A detailed drift analysis shows that the spots in the tails have slow drifts (WS2 and WS3 eastward, WS4 and WS5 westward), while the beginning of the tail WS6 has a higher westward drift, and the bright core follows the westward jet in the North Tropical zone around 2.3° LIII/day. This makes this atmospheric feature a truly giant one on Saturn's scale.
This and the first analysis and ephemeris are available here:
href="http://astrosurf.com/planetessaf/saturne/saturn_2010-NTrZ-storm.html">http://astrosurf.com/planetessaf/saturne/saturn_2010-NTrZ-storm.html
Given the size of the storm, I've created additionaly to the ephemeris of the brightest part an ephemeris for the center of the all zone, so one can better plan his observations: http://astrosurf.com/planetessaf/saturne/doc/2010-NTrZ_storm_center_WW.txt
[Marc Delcroix Tournefeuille,France]
●土星の北熱帯の巨大嵐の発達、2010年12月20日〜2010年12月30日 これは2010年末までの驚くべき嵐の画像の2番目の解析である。
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