NASA says the Cassini spacecraft recorded the aftermath of a massive storm on Saturn that let out an `` unprecedented belch of energy . '' Not only was the size of the storm unusual , but what the storm was made of left scientists puzzled . The source of the cosmic burp , which rapidly changed the atmosphere 's temperature , was ethylene gas , an odorless , colorless gas that has rarely been observed on Saturn , NASA said . `` This temperature spike is so extreme it 's almost unbelievable , '' said Brigette Hesman , the study 's lead author who works at Goddard . `` To get a temperature change of the same scale on Earth , you 'd be going from the depths of winter in Fairbanks , Alaska , to the height of summer in the Mojave Desert , '' Hesman said in a statement released by NASA . NASA 's NuStar gets first look at black hole at the center of the Milky Way . Scientists still have n't figured out from where the ethylene gas came . By comparison , a storm of similar size on Earth would cover North America from top to bottom and wrap the planet many times , researchers said . The Cassini spacecraft first detected the disruption on December 5 , 2010 , and has been following it since , but researchers said the ethylene gas disruption that followed the storm was unexpected . A storm this size happens once every 30 years , or once every Saturn year , NASA scientists said . Launched in 1997 , the Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA , the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency . A full report will be published in November 's issue of the Astrophysical Journal . More news about outer space on CNN.com 's Light Years blog .
The storm , first detected in 2010 , let out something of a cosmic burp . A new study published Monday by the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that this burst was caused by an explosion on one side of a galaxy called NGC 4993 and another on another. The storm also led to a drastic change in the ringed planet .