It’s no secret that man has always been fascinated by space, by what lies beyond our world into the vast, possibly infinite cosmos. And thanks to unprecedented technological advance in this direction, we’ve gotten quite a solid glimpse of our Solar System. The most recent pictures taken by the Cassini unmanned spacecraft orbiting Saturn show an incredibly detailed view of what scientists have called Saturn’s ‘watercolor world’.
Watercolor Patterns and Megawinds on Saturn
The term refers to a number of storms on the planet’s surface, which give it the appearance of watercolors. These storms are caused by megawinds on Saturn’s upper haze layer, and they are as strong as 1,100 mph. Due to these extremely powerful winds, the watercolor-like patterns are produced. Saturn’s megawinds are the fastest in the Solar system, and they occur because the planet’s surface has no solid surface, and this creates atmospheric drag.
Alien Life on Saturn
These images come just after last week, when NASA revealed strong evidence indicating that Saturn, or more exactly one of its moons, might support alien life. One of Saturn’s icy moons, namely Enceladus, has all the necessary elements to sustain life, and is the second cosmic body after our planet to contain them all in one place.
Enceladus has been long suspected of being a proper environment to foster organic life, but it seemed to lack one important element: hydrogen. However, following Cassini’s deepest dive yet on Enceladus, the unmanned spacecraft discovered the small icy moon also had hydrogen on it. This implies that Enceladus might host single-cell organisms right now, which we know are the precursor to complex organic life forms. Cassini has been exploring Saturn for 13 years now, and the discoveries it makes are more and more astounding with each passing day.
