Saturn, Painted By Storms

This photograph of Saturn looks as if it was painted, or carved from a block of sandstone. That's because it was heavily processed on computer to bring out detail in the Ringed Planet's cloud structure. You lose the smooth natural look, but you get to see sharp detail in the atmospheric bands. The image was captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft using a combination of spectral filters. Different wavelengths of infrared radiation represent different colours in the image.

Cassini captured the image on August 19, 2005 when it was approximately 492,000 kilometers (306,000 miles) from Saturn.

NASA/JPL/SSI News Release