Saturn's temperature emissions (upper troposphere)

Caption NASA originale:"This is the sharpest image of Saturn's temperature emissions taken from the ground; it is a mosaic of 35 individual exposures made at the W.M. Keck I Observatory, Mauna Kea, Hawaii on Feb. 4, 2004.
The images to create this mosaic were taken with infrared radiation. The mosaic was taken at a wavelength near 17,65 microns and is sensitive to temperatures in Saturn's upper troposphere. The prominent hot spot at the bottom of the image is right at Saturn's South Pole. The warming of the Southern Hemisphere was expected, as Saturn was just past Southern Summer Solstice, but the abrupt changes in temperature with latitude were NOT expected. The tropospheric temperature increases toward the pole abruptly near 70° latitude from 88° to 89° Kelvin (-301° to -299° Fahrenheit) and then to 91° Kelvin (-296° degrees Fahrenheit) right at the Pole. Ring particles are not at a uniform temperature: they are obviously coldest just after having cooled down in Saturn's shadow (lower left)".