Cassini closes in on ringed mystery planet

The above striking picture of Saturn was taken by the Cassini satellite as it closes ever closer to the ringed gas giant.

The single image was built using a combination of photos taken by the spacecraft's narrow-angle camera in early March when Cassini was 56.4 million kilometres (35 million miles) from Saturn.

Released this month, the image reveals new atmospheric features in the planet's southern hemisphere, seen as two small, faint dark spots, located at 38 degrees south latitude.

Cassini's sensitive cameras might be able to clarify these features when it goes into orbit around Saturn this summer.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative venture of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Launched in October 1997, Cassini and the piggybacking Huygens will slide into orbit around Saturn in July of this year for a four-year sojourn of the planet and its moons.

A highlight of the mission occurs when the detachable Huygens probe heads for Titan, Saturn's largest moon and the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere of its own.

The goal is to land Huygens on Titan's surface where it will carry out a series of experiments and provide a wealth of new data.