An enduring rapidly moving storm as a guide to Saturn's Equatorial jet's complex structure.
Saturn has an intense and broad eastward equatorial jet with a complex three-dimensional structure mixed with time variability. The equatorial region experiences strong seasonal insolation variations enhanced by ring shadowing, and three of the six known giant planetary-scale storms have developed in it. These factors make Saturn's equator a natural laboratory to test models of jets in giant planets. Here we report on a bright equatorial atmospheric feature imaged in 2015 that moved steadily at a high speed of 450 ms-1not measured since 1980-1981 with other equatorial clouds moving within an ample range of velocities. Radiative transfer models show that these motions occur at three altitude levels within the upper haze and clouds. We find that the peak of the jet (latitudes 10° N to 10° S) suffers intense vertical shears reaching +2.5 ms-1km-1, two orders of magnitude higher than meridional shears, and temporal variability above 1 bar altitude level.
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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Sánchez-Lavega
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.|Fundació Observatori Esteve Duran, c/ Montseny, 46-Urb. El Montanyá, Seva 08553, Barcelona, Spain.
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García-Melendo
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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Pérez-Hoyos
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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Hueso
University of California, Department of Astronomy, 501 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
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Wong
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/690, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA.
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Simon
Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes, Departamento de Ciencias Experimentales, C/Padre Julio Chevalier, 2, 47012 Valladolid, Spain.
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Sanz-Requena
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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Antuñano
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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0000-0001-6319-8577
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Barrado-Izagirre
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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Garate-Lopez
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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Rojas
Departamento Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
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Del Río-Gaztelurrutia
Fundació Observatori Esteve Duran, c/ Montseny, 46-Urb. El Montanyá, Seva 08553, Barcelona, Spain.
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Gómez-Forrellad
University of California, Department of Astronomy, 501 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
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de Pater
Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA.
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Li
Broken Hill Observatory, 406 Bromide Street, Broken Hill, New South Wales 2880, Australia.
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Barry