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A strong decrease in Saturn's equatorial jet at cloud level

Nature volume 423, pages 623–625 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

The atmospheres of the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn have a puzzling system of zonal (east–west) winds alternating in latitude, with the broad and intense equatorial jets on Saturn having been observed previously to reach a velocity of about 470 m s-1 at cloud level1. Globally, the location and intensity of Jupiter's jets are stable in time to within about ten per cent2,3, but little is known about the stability of Saturn's jet system. The long-term behaviour of these winds is an important discriminator between models for giant-planet circulations4,5,6,7,8,9. Here we report that Saturn's winds show a large drop in the velocity of the equatorial jet of about 200 m s-1 from 1996 to 2002. By contrast, the other measured jets (primarily in the southern hemisphere) appear stable when compared to the Voyager wind profile of 1980–81.

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Figure 1: Images of different latitudes of Saturn, showing a representative variety of cloud features tracked to measure the winds.
Figure 2: Saturn's zonal (east–west) wind velocity profile at cloud level as a function of latitude.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Flasar for suggestions. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is operated by AURA under NASA contract. A.S.-L., S.P.-H. and J.F.R. were supported by the MCYT Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica and Grupos UPV. S.P.-H. acknowledges a PhD fellowship from the Spanish MECD, and R.H. a post-doctoral fellowship from Gobierno Vasco. R.G.F. was supported in part by NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program and an STSCI grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento Física Aplicada I, Escuela Superior de Ingenieros, Universidad del País Vasco, Alameda Urquijo s/n, 48013, Bilbao, Spain

    A. Sánchez-Lavega, S. Pérez-Hoyos & R. Hueso

  2. Departamento Física Aplicada I, EUITI, Universidad del País Vasco, Plaza Casilla s/n, 48013, Bilbao, Spain

    J. F. Rojas

  3. Department of Astronomy, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, 02481, USA

    R. G. French

Authors
  1. A. Sánchez-Lavega
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Correspondence to A. Sánchez-Lavega.

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Sánchez-Lavega, A., Pérez-Hoyos, S., Rojas, J. et al. A strong decrease in Saturn's equatorial jet at cloud level. Nature 423, 623–625 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01653

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