These Hubble Space Telescope images show Saturn's white spot, a great storm in the planet's equatorial region, discovered by amateur astronomers in September, 1990. Such storms are rare: the last one in the equatorial region occurred in 1933. The storm extends completely around the planet, in some places appearing as great masses of clouds and in others as well organized turbulence.
Knowing that this storm is probably a once in a lifetime event, scientists and engineers of a special White Spot Observing Team, the Wide Field/Planetary Camera Team, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the Goddard Space Flight center reprogrammed Hubble's observing schedule and were able to get several days of Saturn observations in mid-November 1990, shortly before Saturn moved too near in the sky to the Sun for safe observations by Hubble.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and STScI
For more information, visit:
science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/saturn/nasas-hubble...
Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube 