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Probing Saturn's Atmosphere
PIA 07524
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These two images, taken ten minutes apart, demonstrate Cassini's ability to see to different depths of Saturn's immense atmosphere using an array of specially designed spectral filters.
The image at left was obtained using a filter sensitive to wavelengths of light at which methane in Saturn's atmosphere is moderately absorbing, while the image at right was taken in wavelengths where methane is strongly absorbing. At the more weakly absorbing wavelengths, sunlight is able to penetrate a bit deeper into the atmosphere than at the strongly absorbing ones, revealing features deeper down.
Several turbulent storms are visible in both images, indicating that these features extend from fairly deep to fairly high in the weather layer. The visible part of Saturn's atmosphere, where such storms and swirls churn, represents only a thin skin in the outermost part of the giant planet.
The images were taken with the wide angle camera on May 4, 2005, from a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn. The image at left was obtained using a combination of filters sensitive to wavelengths of polarized and infrared light centered at 705 and 728 nanometers, respectively. The image at right was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered 890 nanometers. The image scale is 73 kilometers (45 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: June 20, 2005 (PIA 07524)
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