New Cassini Image shows ‘cosmic brushstrokes’ of clouds over Saturn
A stunning new view of Saturn has revealed waves of clouds swirling above the planet, like ‘strokes from a cosmic brush.’
The image, captured by the Cassini spacecraft from roughly 750,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) above the surface, shows the turbulent essence of Saturn’s clouds, which move as bands in different speeds and directions.
Cassini began the final phase of its mission this week, executing the first of five ultra-close passes of the gas giant on Monday morning.
The new false-color image, shared today by NASA, was captured using Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on May 18. This instrument uses a combination of spectral filters to preferentially admit different wavelengths of near-infrared light.
‘Neighboring bands of clouds move at different speeds and directions depending on their latitudes,’ NASA explains.
‘This generates turbulence where bands meet and leads to the wavy structure along the interfaces.
‘Saturn’s upper atmosphere generates the faint haze seen along the limb of the planet in this image.’
Now, Cassini is much further along in its journey – and, less than a month from now, its mission will come to a dramatic end. Earlier this week, the spacecraft sent back stunning images of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, as it prepares to end its 20-year mission.
Titan’s surface can be seen in incredible detail, as well as the moon’s ever-changing atmosphere. The images come as Cassini begins the final phase of its journey around Saturn.
On Monday, at 05:22 BST (00:22 EST). the probe executed the first of five ultra-close passes of the gas giant, brushing the top of its atmosphere. Data from the manoeuvre is expected to be received back on Earth tomorrow, and Nasa hopes it will provide new information of the chemical composition of Saturn.
At the end of last week, Nasa revealed the images taken by Cassini as it pierced the through hydrocarbon haze that surrounds Titan and capture the images of the moon.
In addition to Titan’s surface, the images show the moon’s ever-changing atmosphere, chronicling the appearance and movement of hazes and clouds over the years.
A large, bright and feathery band of summer clouds can be seen arcing across high northern latitudes in the image on the right. The stunning views were captured at a distance of 613,000 miles (986,000 kilometers) from Titan.
Over the course of its 13-year orbit around Saturn, Cassini has made 127 close flybys of Titan, with many more-distant observations.
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