Saturn s Swirling Cloudscape
Explanation:
Acquiring its first sunlit views of far northern
Saturn in late 2012, the
Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera recorded this
stunning,
false-color image of the ringed planet's north pole.
The composite of near-infrared image data
results in red hues for low clouds and green for high ones, giving the
Saturnian
cloudscape a vivid appearance.
Enormous
by terrestrial standards, Saturn's north polar
hurricane-like storm is deep, red,
and about 2,000 kilometers wide.
Clouds at its outer edge travel at over 500 kilometers per hour.
Other atmospheric
vortices
also swirl inside the large, yellowish green,
six-sided jet stream
known as the hexagon.
Beyond the cloud tops at the upper right, arcs of the planet's
eye-catching rings appear bright blue.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
