Cassini spacecraft image of Saturn's north pole. The bands around the planet represent air flowing at different speeds and clouds at different heights

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Cassini spacecraft image of Saturn's north pole. The bands around the planet represent air flowing at different speeds and clouds at different heights to neighbouring bands. At the very north pole is the eye (dark dot) of a hurricane-like storm. At top right is part if Saturn's rings. The joint NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was launched in 1997 and took seven years to reach Saturn and its moons. The Huygens probe separated from Cassini on 25th December 2004, and descended to the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The Cassini orbiter continued orbiting Saturn; studying its atmosphere and rings and performing flybys of its moons. Image obtained by Cassini's wide-angle camera on 9th September 2016 at an approximate distance of million kilometres from Saturn.

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Size: 2965px × 2965px
Photo credit: © NASA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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