As NASA writes:
Its atmosphere is a fast-moving and turbulent place with wind speeds in excess of 1,100 miles per hour (1,800 km per hour) in places. The lack of a solid surface to create drag means that there are fewer features to slow down the wind than on a planet like Earth.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft from a distance of around 2.5 million kilometres with a wide-angle camera on 4 February 2015 using a spectral filter centered at 752 nanometers, in the near-infrared portion of the spectrum.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Originally published by Cosmos as Cassini’s latest view of Saturn shows deceptive tranquility
Bill Condie
Bill Condie is a science journalist based in Adelaide, Australia.
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