Photo #3 (August 2007)

NEON SATURN

The eyes of science can sometimes see beauty that the naked eye would miss.
                 Daniel Benor

Credit: VIMS Team, U. Arizona, ESA, NASA

It is helpful to scientists sometimes to put various emanations from heavenly bodies into different colors, to highlight which frequencies are found in different portions of a planet or galaxy. If seen in the right light, Saturn glows like a neon sign. A composite image false-colored in three bands of infrared light highlights features of the giant ringed planet like a glowing sign. At the most blue band of the infrared light featured, false-colored blue in the above image, Saturn itself appears dark but Saturn's thin rings brightly reflect light from our Sun. Conversely, Saturn's B ring is so thick that little reflected light makes it through, creating a dark band between Saturn's A and C rings. At the most red band of the infrared, false-colored red above, Saturn emits a surprisingly detailed thermal glow, indicating planet-wide bands, huge hurricane-like storms, and a strange hexagon-shaped cloud system around the North Pole. In the middle infrared band, false-colored green, the sunlit side of Saturn's atmosphere reflects brightly. The above image was obtained in late February, 2007 by the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting about 1.6 million kilometers out from Saturn.