This close-up view shows lots of atmospheric detail, including a dark storm and wisps of cloud. The dark spot is noticeably lighter around its perimeter than in its interior.
The image was taken with the narrow angle camera on September 10, 2004, from a distance of 8.8 million kilometers (5.5 million miles) from Saturn through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 750 nanometers. The image scale is 52 kilometers (32 miles) per pixel. The image has been 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 Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.