This false-color image of Saturn was constructed by combining three images
at three different infrared wavelengths.
The image at the upper left was taken at 1.3 microns, where both Saturn
and its rings strongly reflect light. The center image in the top panel
was taken at 2.4 microns, where the rings strongly reflect light, but
Saturn, because of the methane in its atmosphere, absorbs most of the
light. The third image on the right in the panel was taken at a wavelength
of 5 microns where, because they are composed of almost pure water ice,
the rings absorb almost all the light, and Saturn, because its interior is
warm, glows. Assigning each of the three images to blue, green and red,
respectively, results in the beautiful, false-color, composite image shown
below.
These images were taken on June 21, 2004, with Cassini's visual and
infrared mapping spectrometer at a distance of 6.35 million kilometers
(3.94 million miles) from Saturn.
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 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The
Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual
and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of
Arizona where this image was produced.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm The visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.
