Cassini Image: Saturn’s Clouds Up Close

NASA’s Cassini mission has shared an amazing close-up portrait of Saturn taken from the Cassini robotic probe.

This is a false color image of Saturn, with exaggerated colors to enhance subtle variations in color to bring out details of the cloud structure. The view is centered on 46 degrees north latitude on Saturn. The filter centered at 727 nm was used for red in this image; the filter centered at 750 nm was used for blue. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

This is a false color image of Saturn, with exaggerated colors to enhance subtle variations in color to bring out details of the cloud structure. The view is centered on 46 degrees north latitude on Saturn. The filter centered at 727 nm was used for red in this image; the filter centered at 750 nm was used for blue. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

The image was taken with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on May 18, 2017, using a combination of spectral filters which preferentially admit wavelengths of near-infrared light.

The view was obtained at a distance of 750,000 miles (1.2 million km) from Saturn.

“Clouds on Saturn take on the appearance of strokes from a cosmic brush thanks to the wavy way that fluids interact in the planet’s atmosphere,” the Cassini scientists said.

“Neighboring bands of clouds move at different speeds and directions depending on their latitudes.”

“This generates turbulence where bands meet and leads to the wavy structure along the interfaces.”

“Saturn’s upper atmosphere generates the faint haze seen along the limb of the planet in this new image.”

Cassini just entered new territory in its final mission phase, the Grand Finale.

On Monday, August 14, 2017, the spacecraft successfully made the first of five ultra-close passes through the upper atmosphere of Saturn.

The probe’s point of closest approach to the gas giant during these passes will be between about 1,010 and 1,060 miles (1,630-1,710 km) above Saturn’s cloud tops.

On September 11, 2017, a distant encounter with Saturn’s hazy moon Titan will serve as a gravitational version of a large pop-down maneuver, slowing Cassini’s orbit around the giant planet and bending its path slightly to send the spacecraft toward its September 15 plunge into the planet.

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