Watch the king of the planets turn on its throne

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has observed geysers erupting on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus since 2005, but the process that drives and sustains these eruptions has remained a mystery. Now, scientists have pinpointed a mechanism by which cyclical tidal stresses exerted by Saturn can drive Enceladus’s long-lived eruptions.

Nearly two months after NASA’s Juno spacecraft slipped into orbit around Jupiter, the solar-powered probe made a passage 4,200 kilometres over the giant planet’s colourful banded clouds Saturday, the closest planned encounter during its 20-month exploration of the solar system’s largest world.

In yet another Great Red Spot surprise, researchers find winds in the huge storm’s outer reaches have sped up over the past decade.