Storms in Saturn's atmosphere
This close-up of Saturn's southern hemisphere shows several storms, shown as dark spots huddled in the mid-latitude region.
The largest of these spots is about 3000 kilometres across, or about as wide as Japan is long. This turbulent region has produced quite a few storms during Cassini’s approach to Saturn, including some that have merged.
Also visible are light-coloured, lacy cloud patterns indicative of atmospheric turbulence. The image was taken with the Cassini narrow-angle camera through a near-infrared filter on 7 May 2004, from a distance of 28.2 million kilometres from Saturn.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative project of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space sgency.
Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
