On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, in sci.space.tech,
Hop David said:

John Schilling wrote:
When they going to take a look at the surface of Saturn?
If that wasn't a troll or a joke that went right over my head, the
answer is that Saturn doesn't have a surface.

I am guessing by "surface" Rodney means cloud tops 60,270 km from
Saturn's center.

There've been lots of pics of Saturn's rings and moons but, come to
think of it, haven't seen many close-ups of Saturn.

Saturn has a haze above the cloud tops that makes pictures of it less
interesting from both an aesthetic and a scientific point of view. It's
why you get those spectacular marbled images from Jupiter and just a few
shots of pale streaky Saturn.

It's a good thing for its self-esteem that it has those gorgeous rings,
really :-) Just think what a dull yellow orb it would be otherwise.

Uranus and Neptune make a similar pair: quiet Uranus and swirly
blue-onyx Neptune, with Uranus redeemed by its unusual polar orientation
(when seen at the right time of "year"). ISTR the appearance is again
mostly an effect of high-level haze, although Uranus actually is
genuinely less active than Neptune.

--
Del Cotter
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