I dig this 2007 Steve Willner vid. It has been a while since I revisited it. I was reminded of it when I noticed Google had censored Google Earth quite brutally...
...then around 27/2 when Chile got hit with 8.8, I was staring at my desktop wallpaper I noticed that the south pole of Jupiter too was censored.
You can see this pic and its description at NASA's site. They describe how the map...
...was constructed from images taken by Cassini on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during a flyby on its way to Saturn.
Sweet. The description concludes with the following statement about the southern polar region:
The polar region shown here is less clearly visible because Cassini viewed it at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze.
Jupiter is all haze. That's what makes it so beautiful to look at. There's so many layers of haze and they intermingle with eachother like dancers. When the centre of this image/Jupiter's South Pole is looked at closely, it actually looks like it's been censored with the finesse of an MS Paint brush-tool.
Of course a small search shows that I am not the 1st to notice this -http://hollowjupiter.blogspot.com/
I wonder why there is a problem in showing poles of planets including our own?
Of course I think Saturn's poles holds clues. But I think everything goes back to that damn planet.
I'm getting the feeling that polar magnetism has some effect on the instruments used to capyture planetary imagery. I'm with you on Saturn, Kidder...