Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 4/12/2004

Question
How come Saturn's cloud decks are less colorful than Jupiter's?

Thank You

-ken

Answer
Hello Ken,
Read somewhere recently that that is because of temperature!
saturn's surface is cooler compared to jupiter.
This makes the cloud tops complete and without breaks so no
patterns are visible.
Sagan in his epic book Cosmos has mentioned the "loss" of helium from saturn's atmosphere due to its having "rained down" and joined a sloshing ocean of liquid helium.
(brings superfluidity to mind as helium becomes a super-fluid at cryogenic temperatures..but that is a digression)
I looked up this site for you to confirm what i had read earlier was correct.
http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/lucia/a100/lectures/saturn.html
In fact further down ..onto uranus and neptune, we enter the frosty regions of the solar system and the planets become less and less colorful.
In fact pluto is a prime example! On top of it it is an icy planet rather than a gas giant, and reflects light like a glass marble! resulting in very weak albedo. As compared to its mass, its "reflected size" appears smaller!
Jayen.