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> Storm on Saturn and satellite Tethys seen by Cassini spacecraft

Storm on Saturn and satellite Tethys seen by Cassini spacecraft

author: Nasa/JPL/SSI/Novapix

reference: a-sat05-10041

Image Size 300 DPI: 12 * 12 cm

A bright, powerful, lightning-producing storm churns and coasts along the lane of Saturn's southern hemisphere nicknamed "Storm Alley" by scientists. NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected this particular tempest after nearly two years during which Saturn did not appear to produce any large electrical storms of this kind. The storm appears as a bright, irregular splotch on the planet near lower right. Lightning flashes within the persistent storm produce radio waves, called Saturn Electrostatic Discharges, which the Cassini radio and plasma wave science instrument first detected on Nov. 27, 2007. Cassini's imaging cameras then spotted the storm, taking the images used to create this color view about a week later on Dec. 6. The view looks toward the un-illuminated side of the rings from about 5 degrees above the ringplane. Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) is seen here in the foreground, and casts its shadow onto the high northern latitudes. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of approximately 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 97 kilometers (60 miles) per pixel.

Keywords for this photo:

2007 - ASTRONOMY - ATMOSPHERE - CASSINI - CLOUD - METEOROLOGY - PLANET - RING - SATELLITE - SATURN - SATURN'S MOON - SHADOW - STORM - TETHYS -