What the Heck Is This?

News
By Robert Roy Britt
published

Today's image might resemble art. And, well, it is. But nobody painted it.

Need a hint? It's otherworldly art.

Last hint: Art is sometimes born of tempests. See the full image below — and another image that makes all this clear.

This photo is a close-up of a false-color image of a giant, raging storm on Saturn, released yesterday (July 6) by NASA. The tempest, dubbed the Great White Spot, is nearly as wide as Earth — about 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers). It has a tail of white clouds that encircles all of Saturn. Check out the captions on both the images below for more.

These false-color images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft chronicle a day in the life of a huge storm that developed from a small spot that appeared 12 weeks earlier in Saturn's northern mid-latitudes. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

An image of Saturn taken in December 2010 by the Cassini spacecraft shows a storm with a latitudinal and longitudinal extent of 10,000 km and 17,000 km, respectively. The latitudinal extent of the storm’s head is approximately the distance from London to Cape Town. A "tail" emerging from its southern edge extends further eastward. (Image credit: Carolyn Porco and CICLOPS; NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

Got a strange or interesting photo related to science, nature or technology? What the Heck, send it to me, and maybe I'll use it. Or follow me on Twitter, or Facebook.

Robert Roy Britt
Robert Roy Britt

Robert is an independent health and science journalist and writer based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a former editor-in-chief of Live Science with over 20 years of experience as a reporter and editor. He has worked on websites such as Space.com and Tom's Guide, and is a contributor on Medium, covering how we age and how to optimize the mind and body through time. He has a journalism degree from Humboldt State University in California.