The clouds of Saturn

This false-color mosaic of Saturn shows deep-level clouds silhouetted against Saturn's glowing interior. The image was made with data from Cassini's VIMS, which can image the Planet at 352 different wavelengths. This mosaic shows the entire Planet, including features like Saturn's Ring shadows and the Terminator, the boundary between day and night.
The data were obtained in February 2006 at a distance of 1,6 MKM (about 1 MMs) from directly over the plane of Saturn's Rings, which appear here as a thin, blue line over the equator. The image was constructed from images taken at wavelengths of 1,07 microns (blue), 2,71 microns (green) and 5,02 microns (red).
The blue-green color (lower right) is Sunlight scattered off clouds high in Saturn's atmosphere and the red color (upper left) is the glow of thermal radiation from Saturn's warm interior, easily seen on Saturn's night side (top left), within the shadow of the Rings and with somewhat less contrast on Saturn's day side (bottom right). The darker areas within Saturn show the strongest thermal radiation. The bright red color indicates areas where Saturn's atmosphere is relatively clear. The great variety of cloud shapes and sizes reveals a surprisingly active planet below the overlying sun-scattering haze.

The brighter glow of the northern hemisphere versus the southern indicates that the clouds and hazes there are noticeably thinner than those in the south. Scientists speculate that this is a seasonal effect, and if so, it will change as the northern hemisphere enters springtime during the next few years.