Categories: AstrophotosSaturn

Bright White Storm Raging on Saturn

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About a week ago, a bright white storm emerged on Saturn’s northern hemisphere, and amateur astronomer/planet astrophotographer extraordinaire Anthony Wesley from Australia has captured a few images of it. “This is the brightest Saturn storm in decades,” Anthony said on his website, Ice In Space. “If you get a chance to see it visually then take it, as it may be one of the rare “Great White Spot” (GWS) outbreaks on Saturn.”

Great White Spots, or Great White Ovals occur periodically on Saturn, and are usually large enough to be visible by telescope from Earth by their characteristic white appearance. The spots can be several thousands of kilometers wide.

Anthony joked that the outburst on Saturn might happening because the planet getting a little jealous that Jupiter has been getting lately with the reappearance of the Southern Equatorial Belt.

See a few more images from Anthony below.

Another view of the white storm on Saturn. Image courtesy of Anthony Wesley, used by permission.

This infrared view shows a hint of structure in the outline of the storm. “There seems to be an extension developing to the southeast,” Anthony pointed out. Rhea is also visible in the image.

A CH4 image of Saturn taken by Anthony Wesley, where the storm does not show up. Credit: Anthony Wesley, used by permission.

In the above image, the storm doesn’t show up. “Interestingly the CH4 (methane) image doesn’t show the storm at all,” Anthony said. “I’m not sure if this is simply because CH4 is not useful on Saturn (maybe these storms are too low in the atmosphere to get any return?)”

Thanks to Anthony Wesley for sharing his images with Universe Today. See more of his images at Ice in Space, and his other gallery site, “Birds Astronomy Site”

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

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