Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed unexpected features in Saturn’s atmosphere, including “dark grains” and a star-like pattern with two missing arms.
The initial hypothesis that the dark grains were caused by icy particles falling from Saturn’s “E ring” has been ruled out. The ring is too flat to produce such spots. It is more likely that collisions in atmospheric winds form them. At the same time, the arms of the star-like pattern coincide with the corners of Saturn’s famous hexagon. This hexagonal cloud structure was first observed by NASA’s Voyager mission in the 1980s and remains one of the planet’s greatest mysteries.
