This image shows several dark storms confined to a region below 30 degrees south latitude in Saturn's atmosphere. This turbulent region has produced quite a few storms during Cassini's approach to Saturn, including some that have merged. A number of other interesting smaller-scale atmospheric features are also becoming visible.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on May 11, 2004, from a distance of 26.4 million kilometers (16.4 million miles) from Saturn through a filter centered at 750 nanometers. The image scale is 157 kilometers (98 miles) per pixel. Contrast in the image was enhanced to aid visibility.

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.