A Saturn storm is raging across the planet, covering 1.5 billion square miles, or 8 times the surface area of the earth.

Saturn-caliber mega storms dwarf those seen on the earth; they can last for days at a time, engulf the entire planet, and the lightning is thousands of times more powerful compared to earth lightning.

The storm, which started out small, was first detected by the Cassini-Huygens mission, a joint effort by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency.

Saturn isn't always this turbulent, howver. In fact, it has experience only five storms of this magnitude since scientists began tracking the planet.

Cassini shows us that Saturn is bipolar, said Andrew Ingersoll, an author of the study.

Saturn is not like Earth and Jupiter, where storms are fairly frequent. Weather on Saturn appears to hum along placidly for years and then erupt violently. I'm excited we saw weather so spectacular on our watch, he said.

Below are images of the Saturn storm taken from Cassini.

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