Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2025 October 5
The planet Saturn is shown in infrared with great detail
visible on its cloud tops. The rings appear as a thin
blue horizontal line. She shadow of the rings appear as
curving dark lines on the clouds. Near the top one of
the tan cloud bands shows appears quite jumbled.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

A Long Storm System on Saturn
Image Credit: NASA, JPL, ESA, Cassini Imaging Team, SSI

Explanation: It was one of the largest and longest-lived storms ever recorded in our Solar System. First seen in late 2010, the featured cloud formation in the northern hemisphere of Saturn started larger than the Earth and soon spread completely around the planet. The storm was tracked not only from Earth but from up close by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting Saturn. Pictured here in false-coloured infrared in February, orange colours indicate clouds deep in the atmosphere, while light colours highlight clouds higher up. The rings of Saturn are seen nearly edge-on as the thin blue horizontal line. The warped dark bands are the shadows of the rings cast onto the cloud tops by the Sun to the upper left. A source of radio noise from lightning, the intense storm was thought to relate to seasonal changes when spring emerges in the north of Saturn. After raging for over six months, the iconic storm circled the entire planet and then tried to absorb its own tail -- which surprisingly caused it to fade away.

Tomorrow's picture: open space


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