Clouds near the boundary of day and night on Saturn show unusual
three-dimensional structure in this Cassini view. At this location on the
planet, the Sun is at a very low angle, causing vertical relief to become
apparent. Generally, Cassini imaging scientists use specially designed
spectral filters to probe the vertical structure of the gas giant's
atmosphere.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow
angle camera on Jan. 16, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.8
million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Saturn. North is to the upper
right. The image scale is 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel.
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 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.
