Saturn Storms Observed by Voyager, August 5, 2004
Voyager 1 and 2 observed radio signals from lightning which were
interpreted as being from a persistent, low-latitude storm system which
was extended in longitude, perhaps similar to the region highlighted on
this Voyager 2 image acquired on Aug. 4, 1981, from a distance of 21
million kilometers (13 million miles).
Similar lightning detections by Cassini suggest a much more variable
pattern of storms which come and go on time scales of days. The
differences may be explained, in part, by stark differences in the
shadows cast by the rings between the Voyager and Cassini eras. This
image was previously released on December 5, 1998 (see Original Caption).
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 Science Mission
Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed
and assembled at JPL. The radio and plasma wave science team is based at
the University of Iowa, Iowa City.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the instrument team's home page,
http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plasma-wave/cassini/home.html.
