By Adam Mann
One of the largest storms ever seen on Saturn may have been a victim of its own success, choking when it ate its own tail.
The “Great Springtime Storm” was a colossal maelstrom that raged on Saturn for a record-breaking 267 days during 2010 and 2011. The storm was so vast that it wrapped itself around the planet’s Northern Hemisphere, allowing the storm’s head to encounter its own tail. Even after the storm’s death, the planet continued to feel its effects when it generated the largest and hottest vortex ever seen in the solar system. Scientists had a spectacular front-row seat for the entire storm with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which gathered invaluable data about the event.
