This image shows the delicate banded nature of Saturn's atmosphere. Notable is the small white spot just north of the dark south polar collar. The image was taken with the Cassini narrow angle camera on May 4, 2004, at a distance of 29.7 million kilometers (18.5 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 177 kilometers (110 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-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 .
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
