After Pluto's status as a planet was taken away and dwarfed (2006), Neptune took the position of the most extreme world of the Solar System. A new photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope was obtained under the OPAL program, which since 2014 has been studying 4 outer planets annually.
A survey of Neptune in September and November 2018 revealed the first hints of an awakening large-scale storm — the northern Great Dark Spot (top left). In terms of shape and size, it resembles the storm found in 1989 during the passage of the Voyager-2 space probe.
Annual observations of the Hubble telescope and ground-based instruments will allow tracking the development of the storm. But earlier reviews of the OPAL program showed that the appearance was preceded by an increase in the activity of clouds throughout the territory. It is believed that the storm began to form in 2015. The slow process suggests that a storm was developing deep in the atmosphere of Neptune, picking up dark material from the depths.
