A new sight appeared on Saturn earlier this month: A massive, swirling storm with a tail that cuts across the gas giant. Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, who was the first to spot the Earth-sized scar on Jupiter last summer, took the first pictures of this storm. And then on Christmas Eve the Cassini spacecraft beamed home its own ravishing images. From Phil Plait:
The spacecraft took images of the planet on December 24th, returning — as usual — jaw-dropping pictures of Saturn showing the storm. This image, taken with a blue filter, shows the storm clearly. The main spot is huge, about 6,000 km (3600 miles) across — half the size of Earth! Including the tail streaming off to the right, the whole system is over 60,000 km (36,000 miles) long.
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There’s an added bonus in these images: the shadow of the rings on the planet’s clouds is obvious, ...
