Great White Spot
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The Great White Spot, also known as Great White Oval, on Saturn, named by analogy from Jupiter's Great Red Spot, is a name given to periodic storms that are large enough to be visible by telescope from Earth by their characteristic white appearance. The spots can be several thousands of kilometers wide.
The phenomenon is somewhat periodic at 29.5-year intervals, when Saturn's northern hemisphere tilts most toward the Sun. The following is a list of recorded sightings:
- 1876 - Observed by Asaph Hall. He used the white spots to determine the planet's period of rotation.
- 1903 - Observed by Edward Barnard
- 1933 - Observed by Will Hay, comic actor and amateur astronomer. Until recent times the most celebrated.
- 1960 - Observed by JH Botham (South Africa)
- 1990 - Observed by Stuart Wilbert; Observed from 24 September through November
- 2006 - Observed by Erick Bondoux and Jean-Luc Dauvergne
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- 1990/1 Hubble Space Telescope image
- 2006: observed with a 12" telescope by amateurs near Paris.
- Volunteers Help NASA Track Return of the Dragon
- Patrick Moore, ed., The 1993 Yearbook of Astronomy, Mark Kidger, "The 1990 Great White Spot of Saturn", 176-215, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992).
- Moche, Dinah (1996). “Chapter 9: Planets”, Astronomy: a self-teaching guide (paper), 4th edition (in English), John Wiley & Sons, 245. ISBN 0-471-53001-8. Retrieved on 2006-11-26.
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