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  

PIA08830: Cloud Sketches
Weather whirls on an alien world. Bright clouds swim in giant banks and shoals in Saturn's dreamlike atmosphere. This image was taken with NASA's Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera.
 Target Name:  Saturn
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Cassini-Huygens 
 Spacecraft:  Cassini Orbiter
 Instrument:  ISS - Narrow Angle 
 Product Size:  1012 x 903 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Cassini Imaging Team 
 Primary Data Set:  Cassini 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA08830.tif (915 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA08830.jpg (53.52 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:

Weather whirls on an alien world. Bright clouds swim in giant banks and shoals in Saturn's dreamlike atmosphere.

With the Sun low on the horizon, the three-dimensional shape of the clouds becomes more apparent here. Streaks of cloud rise above their surroundings, casting shadows toward the bottom of the image.

Some motion blur is apparent in this view.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 938 nanometers on Oct. 30, 2006. Cassini was then at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 143 degrees. Image scale is 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Image Addition Date:
2006-12-06