Hubble captures a new image of Saturn

The Hubble Space Telescope caught this shot of Saturn in June 2019 as the ringed planet made its closest approach to Earth – passing within 1.36 billion km of our planet.

With its rings tilted towards us, the different bands that run through them can be clearly seen, as can the hexagonal storm raging around Saturn’s north pole.

What can no longer be seen, however, is the smaller storm just below the north polar region, which Hubble spotted in 2018.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, A Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and MH Wong (University of California, Berkeley)