Believe nothing

• Hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth
• Hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon

By MARK PRIGG

PUBLISHED: 17:40 GMT, 29 April 2013 | UPDATED: 18:49 GMT, 29 April 2013

At first glance, it resembles a giant rose, surrounded by green foliage.

However, in fact this is a huge, violent storm of the surface of Saturn – and one that has been brewing for years

In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists say the hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth.

The spinning vortex of Saturn’s north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Measurements have sized the eye at a staggering 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour (150 meters per second).

Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon.

‘We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth,’ said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

‘But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapor in Saturn’s hydrogen atmosphere.’

Scientists will be studying the hurricane to gain insight into hurricanes on Earth, which feed off warm ocean water.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2316699/The-breathtaking-rose-storms-Saturn-captured-Cassini.html#ixzz2S7oHC54E