First-ever details of huge Saturn storm unveiled by NASA’s Cassini.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures a composite near-true-color view of the huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere. NASA/handout.

Details of a huge Saturn storm with lightning flash rate 10 times more than other storms have been released by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

The storm, first detected in December 2010, has been raging ever since and is said to be about 500 times larger than any previous storm observed by Cassini from 2009 to 2010.

Pictures from Cassini's imaging cameras show that the storm has wrapped around the entire planet covering approximately 2 billion square miles (4 billion square kilometers).

This storm is thrilling because it shows how shifting seasons and solar illumination can dramatically stir up the weather on Saturn, stated Georg Fischer, a radio and plasma wave science team member at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz. We have been observing storms on Saturn for almost seven years, so tracking a storm so different from the others has put us at the edge of our seats.

It has been reported that at its most intense, the storm generated more than 10 lightning flashes per second.

Check out the exclusive images below:

NASA Storm Storm Storm