Saturn or a watercolour painting? NASA's Cassini beams back image of picturesque swirls on the planet's surface! - See pic

Image courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

New Delhi: NASA's Cassini mission's aim of investigating Saturn is truly a fruitful one, owing to all the wonderfully insightful information it has managed to beam back to the scientists.

The ringed planet is certainly attracting attention thanks to Cassini and scientists and space enthusiasts are very much intrigued to know all the hidden secrets it holds.

Cassini is currently on its last leg of the Saturn probe and has once again delivered a visual beauty, showing its beautiful bands and swirls, which somewhat resemble the brushwork in a watercolor painting.

Explaining the photograph, NASA says that each latitudinal band represents air flowing at different speeds, and clouds at different heights, compared to neighboring bands. Where they meet and flow past each other, the bands' interactions produce many eddies and swirls.

The northern polar region of Saturn is dominated by the famous hexagon shape (see PIA11682) which itself circumscribes the northern polar vortex – seen as a dark spot at the planet’s pole in the image – which is understood to the be eye of a hurricane-like storm (PIA14946).

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 20 degrees above the ring plane, NASA reported.