CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Cat-Eyed Saturn

Cat-Eyed Saturn
PIA 08156
Avg Rating: 9.25/10

Full Size 649x700:
JPEG 94 KB
PNG 227 KB
TIFF 455 KB
   Bright, high altitude clouds, like those imaged here, often appear more filamentary or streak-like than clouds imaged at slightly deeper levels in Saturn's atmosphere. This view also shows one of the many "cat's eye" vortices that swim through the southern latitudes.

The image was taken in polarized infrared light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 7, 2006, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 17 kilometers (10 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: April 13, 2006 (PIA 08156)
Image/Caption Information