Enjoy Space : Image of the day

A very colourful Saturn
It looks like an abstract painting. But it is, in fact, a map of the temperatures on Saturn. The readings were taken by the probe Cassini. On the left, temperatures on the ringed giant in 2005. On the right, the temperatures in 2008. In the middle, the colours illustrate the differences: red indicates an increase (of approximately 6 to 8° Kelvin) and blue a decrease. In 2005, Saturn's North Pole was at the end of its winter (the angle of the planet putting it in the shade). In 2008, we see that the north had warmed up whereas the south had cooled down. This heralded the equinox of 2009, when the Sun lit up both poles.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/Oxford University

Analysis of the photo on Planetary Photojournal (JPL)

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