This Cassini image shows mesmerizing detail in the swirls and ribbons of
air in Saturn's atmosphere. The view was obtained at a distance of 8.5
million kilometers (5.3 million miles) from Saturn and is but a taste of
what the spacecraft's powerful cameras will show when Cassini draws nearer
to the planet. The limb of the planet is visible at lower right.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on
Sept. 15, 2004, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared
light. The image scale is 101 kilometers (63 miles) per pixel. The image
was magnified by a factor of two and slightly contrast enhanced to improve
visibility of features in the atmosphere.
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.