This image of Saturn, the second-largest planet in the solar system, was taken on December 8th, when Saturn was 1,209 million kilometres from Earth and close to summer solstice in the southern hemisphere.
The tilt of the rings is about as large as it can be, allowing for the best possible view of the planet's south pole.
The image was captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope at Paranal, in Chile, using a new image-sharpening device, the NAOS-CONICA Adaptive Optics instrument. It produces images almost as good as those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The area seen in the image was on Saturn's night side in 1982 and could not, therefore, be photographed during the Voyager encounter.
The dark spot close to the south pole measures approximately 300 kilometres across. It was only recently observed in visible light from the ground with a telescope at the Pic du Midi Observatory, in the French Pyrenees. This is the first infrared image to show it.
The bright spot close to the equator is the remnant of a giant storm in Saturn's extended atmosphere that has lasted more than five years.
The photograph is a composite of four short-exposure images taken through the near-infrared H and K filters.
Photograph: European Southern Observatory