Editing Cassini–Huygens (section)

=== Jupiter flyby ===
{{more citations needed|section|date=October 2018}}<!--only first paragraph has a citation-->
[[File:Portrait of Jupiter from Cassini.jpg|thumb|right|A [[Jupiter]] flyby picture]]
''Cassini'' made its closest approach to Jupiter on December 30, 2000, at 9.7 million kilometers, and made many scientific measurements. About 26,000 images of Jupiter, its [[Jupiter's rings|faint rings]], and its [[Jupiter's moons|moons]] were taken during the six-month flyby. It produced the most detailed global color portrait of the planet yet (see image at right), in which the smallest visible features are approximately {{convert|60|km|mi|abbr=on}} across.<ref name=Hansen_2004/>

[[File:PIA02879 - A New Year for Jupiter and Io.jpg|thumb|left|''Cassini'' photographed Io [[Transit (astronomy)|transiting]] Jupiter on January 1, 2001.]]
A major finding of the flyby, announced on March 6, 2003, was of Jupiter's atmospheric circulation. Dark "belts" alternate with light "zones" in the atmosphere, and scientists had long considered the zones, with their pale clouds, to be areas of upwelling air, partly because many clouds on Earth form where air is rising. But analysis of ''Cassini'' imagery showed that individual storm cells of upwelling bright-white clouds, too small to see from Earth, pop up almost without exception in the dark belts. According to [[Anthony Del Genio]] of NASA's [[Goddard Institute for Space Studies]], "the belts must be the areas of net-rising atmospheric motion on Jupiter, [so] the net motion in the zones has to be sinking".

Other atmospheric observations included a swirling dark oval of high atmospheric haze, about the size of the [[Great Red Spot]], near Jupiter's north pole. Infrared imagery revealed aspects of circulation near the poles, with bands of globe-encircling winds, with adjacent bands moving in opposite directions.

The same announcement also discussed the nature of Jupiter's [[planetary ring|rings]]. Light scattering by particles in the rings showed the particles were irregularly shaped (rather than spherical) and likely originate as ejecta from [[micrometeorite]] impacts on Jupiter's moons, probably [[Metis (moon)|Metis]] and [[Adrastea (moon)|Adrastea]].