Strange Shape In Saturns Cloudtops

Cassini's latest close pass by the ringed planet shows a bright, somewhat distorted feature in Saturn's southern hemisphere.

By Space War Editorial Team · Editorial process

Published April 10, 2006

Cassini's latest close pass by the ringed planet shows a bright, somewhat distorted feature in Saturn's southern hemisphere.

Mission scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory think the feature might be a transient eddy that formed and then collided with an obstacle, such as a vortex, in a zone of wind shear between two opposing east-west flowing jets. It also could be simply a place where two jets are interacting.

The spacecraft captured the image in polarized green light with its narrow-angle camera on March 7, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 17 kilometers (10 miles) per pixel.

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Space War Editorial Team

The Space War Editorial Team produces content across our two editorial pillars: space industry news and Mind & Meaning. We cover launches, missions, satellites, defense, and the technology of getting humans to space, alongside the psychology of ambition, isolation, and meaning under extremes. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Space War takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.