Serene Saturn

From a distance Saturn seems to exude an aura of serenity and peace. In spite of this appearance, Saturn is an active and dynamic world.

View of Saturn, taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 4, 2015 
[Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute]

Its atmosphere is a fast-moving and turbulent place with wind speeds in excess of 1,100 miles per hour (1,800 km per hour) in places.

The lack of a solid surface to create drag means that there are fewer features to slow down the wind than on a planet like Earth.

Mimas, to the upper-right of Saturn, has been brightened by a factor of 2 for visibility.

In this view, Cassini was at a subspacecraft latitude of 19 degrees North. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Feb. 4, 2015 using a spectral filter centered at 752 nanometers, in the near-infrared portion of the spectrum.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.6 million miles (2.5 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 96 miles (150 kilometers) per pixel.

Source: NASA [May 12, 2015]