Saturn's Infrared Glow
Credit: VIMS Team, U. Arizona, ESA, NASA
Posted on 12/29/2007 5:29:32 AM PST by sig226
Explanation: Known for its bright ring system and many moons, gas giant Saturn looks strange and unfamiliar in this false-color view from the Cassini spacecraft. In fact, in this Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) mosaic the famous rings are almost invisible, seen edge-on cutting across picture center. The most striking contrast in the image is along the terminator or boundary between night and day. To the right (day side) blue-green hues are visible sunlight reflected from Saturn's cloud tops. But on the left (night side) in the absence of sunlight, the lantern-like glow of infrared radiation from the planet's warm interior silhouettes features at Saturn's deeper cloud levels.
It’s obviously Bush’s fault. :)
It’s obviously Bush’s fault. :)
Saturn is my name; I’m first
Of planets high above the earth.
I am by nature dry and cold,
And my works are manifold.
I in my houses firmly stand-
The Goat and the Waterman.
I do much damage by my might,
On sea and land, by day and night.
My exaltation’s in the Scales,
But in the Ram my power fails.
It’s thirty years, harsh and malign,
Ere I come again to the same sign.
The mean temperature on Saturn (at the cloud tops) is 88 K. It is the only planet less dense than water.
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