Photograph Description

Voyager 2 spacecraft image of the planet Neptune, taken between August 16 & 17, 1989, as the spacecraft approached its pass to within 5,000km of Neptune’s north pole. This virtually true-colour image shows two prominent cloud features of Neptune’s highly active weather system. At left is the Great Dark Spot, a giant storm system located at a latitude of 22 degrees south that circuits the planet every 18.3 hours. The bright clouds below & to its right were found to change appearance in periods as short as four hours. A second, smaller dark spot (bottom right) circuits the planet every 16.1 hours. (Photo by Science Photo Library)