Saturn’s north polar region displays its beautiful bands and swirls, which somewhat resemble the brushwork in a watercolour painting.
Each latitudinal band represents air flowing at different speeds, and clouds at different heights, compared to neighbouring bands. Where they meet and flow past each other, the bands’ interactions produce many eddies and swirls.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on 5 September this year, approximately 1.4 million kilometres from Saturn.
Originally published by Cosmos as Saturnian swirls
Cosmos
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