Enhanced-colour image of Saturn's clouds

This enhanced-colour image of the northern hemisphere of Saturn was taken by the US Voyager 1 on 5 November 1980 at a range of 9 million kilometres. Its shows a variety of features in Saturn's clouds. Small-scale convective cloud features are visible in the brown belt; an isolated convective cloud with a dark ring is seen in the light-brown zone; and a longitudinal wave is visible in the light blue region.

The smallest features visible in this photograph are 175 kilometres across. Time-lapse images of cloud features like these not only provide information on how these storms evolve with time, but provide a way to measure atmospheric wind speeds.

On Saturn and the other gas giants, winds blow mainly along lines of constant latitude. Near Saturn's equator, winds blow eastward (the same direction as Saturn rotates) at speeds of about 1100 metres per second.