Restless Atmosphere (2)

Saturn's atmosphere comes alive with a multitude of dark vortices swirling through the Southern Hemisphere.
Vortices are long-lived features that are part of the general circulation of Saturn's atmosphere. Vortices are thought to be caused by the shear between Eastward- and Westward-flowing jets - the alternating bands flowing past each other in the atmosphere. The vortices can last for months or years and probably grow by merging with other vortices until a few dominate a particular zone of wind shear between two jets. The vortex at upper right is one of the largest vortices on Saturn.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 16, 2006 at a distance of approximately 3,2 MKM (about 2 MMs) from Saturn. The image scale is about 19 Km (approx. 12 miles) per pixel.