Look Into the Blood-Red Eye of Saturn’s Polar Hurricane

The spinning vortex over Saturn’s north pole, imaged by Cassini. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
The spinning vortex over Saturn’s north pole, imaged by Cassini. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

An incredible 1,200-mile-wide vortex of spiraling clouds swirling above Saturn’s north pole is seen in all its glory in this stunning image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, originally captured last year but recently released by NASA on April 29.

Taking advantage of a new orbital trajectory that puts it high above Saturn’s rings and poles, Cassini acquired the near-infrared images used to make this composite back on Nov. 27, 2012. The resulting image is false color — our eyes aren’t sensitive to those particular wavelengths of light — but still no less amazing!

Read the rest of my article here.

5 Comments

  1. Why dint we get videos for this kind hurricane etc.

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    1. J. P. Major says:

      Most spacecraft don’t take videos, they take still images, which are more important for science research.

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  2. Anonymous says:

    ?

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