Atom & Cosmos
A cosmic collision heard ‘round the world, plus Saturn storms, black hole drains and more in this week’s news
By Science News
Saturn storm’s aftermath
Planetary scientists have for the first time documented in detail the effects of a Saturnian storm on the planet’s atmosphere. Combining data from satellites and ground-based telescopes, an international team of researchers found that within a month of the onset of a storm last December, the disturbance had penetrated hundreds of kilometers into Saturn’s stratosphere, altering temperature, winds and composition over an entire hemisphere. The storm also created brilliant beacons of infrared light and generated a new, cold vortex in the middle of the disturbance, the team reports online May 19 in Science. —Ron Cowen
Atmospheric smash
A once-a-decade cosmic collision was heard halfway around the world, scientists have found. In October 2009 a small asteroid entered the atmosphere over Indonesia and disintegrated spectacularly. Scientists detected the sound waves that the fireball sent reverberating through the atmosphere as far away as Bolivia, say Elizabeth Silber of the University of Western Ontario and her colleagues. The blast was one of the most energetic ever recorded, the researchers report in a paper to appear in an upcoming Geophysical Research Letters. —Alexandra Witze