English: These false-colour images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft chronicle a day in the life of a huge
storm that developed from a small spot that appeared 12 weeks earlier in Saturn's northern mid-latitudes. The storm encircles the planet - whose circumference at these latitudes is 300,000 kilometres. From north to south, it covers a distance of about 15,000 kilometres, which is one-third of the way around the
Earth. It encompasses an area of 4 billion square kilometres, or eight times the surface area of Earth. This storm is about 500 times the area of the biggest of the southern hemisphere storms observed by Cassini. The highest clouds in the image are probably around 100 millibars pressure, 100 kilometres above the regular undisturbed clouds. These false colors show clouds at different altitudes. Clouds that appear
blue here are the highest and are semitransparent, or optically thin. Those that are
yellow and
white are optically thick clouds at high altitudes. Those shown
green are intermediate clouds.
Red and
brown colors are clouds at low altitude unobscured by high clouds, and the deep blue color is a thin
haze with no clouds below. The base of the clouds, where
lightning is generated, is probably in the
water cloud layer of Saturn's atmosphere. The storm clouds are likely made out of water
ice covered by crystallized
ammonia. Taken about 11 hours -- or one Saturn day -- apart, the two
mosaics in the lower half of this image product consist of 84 images each. The mosaic in the middle was taken earlier than the mosaic at the bottom. Both mosaics were captured on Feb. 26, 2011, and each of the two batches of images was taken over about 4.5 hours.
Two enlargements from the earlier, middle mosaic are shown at the top of this product. The white lines below the middle mosaic identify those parts of the mosaic that were enlarged for these close-up views. The enlargement on the top left shows the head of the storm, and that on the top right shows the turbulent middle of the storm. Both of the long mosaics cover an area ranging from about 30 degrees north latitude to 51 degrees north latitude. The views stretch from about 138 degrees west longitude on the left to 347 degrees west longitude on the right, passing through 360/0 degrees west longitude near the far right of the mosaics.