Storm Wraps All The Way Around Saturn. Friggin’ Amazing.

Enlarge. | Via.

This picture is absolutely bananas. Banana cakes even. Check out that storm on Saturn. It’s reaching all the way around the entire planet.  That like, makes it big, right? You have no damn idea.

Bad Astronomy:

You can see the storm has actually wound entirely around the planet; just below the head on the left you can see light colored clouds that are actually from the tail of the storm that’s wrapped all the way around Saturn. Given Saturn’s diameter of about 120,000 km (72,000 miles) and the latitude of the storm (call it 45 °), this monster system must be well over 300,000 km (180,000 miles) in length! That’s three-quarters of the way from the Earth to the Moon.

Yegads.

The storm is blasting out tons of radio noise, a sure sign that lightning must be dancing prodigiously beneath those clouds. The violence and raw power of this storm are amazing to ponder. Note that just the north/south extent of the storm is roughly the size of Earth.

The scope is just goddamn silly.