PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA06505: A Crisp View
 Target Name:  Saturn
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  ISS - Narrow Angle
 Product Size:  512 x 510 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  CICLOPS/Space Science Institute
 Primary Data Set:  Cassini
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA06505.tif (178.5 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA06505.jpg (11.1 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This detailed view of Saturn's southern hemisphere shows clouds, storms and waves in the planet's many latitudinal bands.

The image was taken through a filter where methane gas has strong absorption. The cloud particles scatter light back toward the camera, but methane gas absorbs it, so only high clouds are visible in this image. Differences in cloud height are not resolvable; the impression of parallel ridges and troughs is an optical illusion brought about by the alternating light and dark bands.

Saturn's rings were overexposed in this long duration exposure and appear quite bright.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Sept. 12, 2004, at a distance of 8.7 million kilometers (5.4 million miles) from Saturn through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 889 nanometers. The image scale is 103 kilometers (64 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 Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, 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.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Image Addition Date:
2004-10-25