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The mother planet and its magnetosphere

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The Cassini-Huygens Visit to Saturn

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Abstract

Planetary exploration opens a window into the natures of worlds other than Earth, and this can give us a better sense of our own position in the scheme of things. At times, we realize that long-held beliefs must be changed. For instance on Earth, the weather is thought of as highly changeable and inconstant. A storm refers to a short-lived atmospheric phenomenon, typically hours or days in length. Not so on Saturn. Comparing Cassini Orbiter with Voyager data demonstrates that certain Saturnian tempests have lasted for decades, at least.1 And while cloud formations in Earth’s atmosphere are notably transient, on Saturn they endure indefinitely.

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    Michael Meltzer

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Meltzer, M. (2015). The mother planet and its magnetosphere. In: The Cassini-Huygens Visit to Saturn. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07608-9_11

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