October 2004
European Space Agency
Turbulence in Saturn's atmosphere
Turbulence in the atmosphere of Saturn
This turbulent boundary between two latitudinal bands in Saturn's atmosphere curls repeatedly along its edge in this NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens image.
This pattern is an example of a 'Kelvin-Helmholtz instability', which occurs when two fluids of different density flow past each other at different speeds. This type of phenomenon should be fairly common on the gas-giant planets given their alternating jets and the different temperatures in their belts and zones.
The image was taken with the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 9 October 2004, at a distance of 5.9 million kilometres from Saturn through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centred at 889 nanometres. The image scale is 69 kilometres per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative project of NASA, ESA and ASI, the Italian space agency.
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