New research has showed extreme storms on Uranus, which became visible even to amateur astronomers thanks to extremely bright cloud systems.

Lead researcher Imke de Pater, professor and chair of astronomy at the University of California (UC) - Berkeley, detected a total of eight giant storms in the distant planet's northern hemisphere. He and his team made these observations on Aug. 5 and 6 at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

"The weather on Uranus is incredibly active," de Pater said in a press release.

Uranus normally gives of a blue-green color and, due to its distance from the sun, is considered an ice giant because of its size, approximately four times the diameter of Earth.

"This type of activity would have been expected in 2007, when Uranus's once-every-42-year equinox occurred and the sun shined directly on the equator," Heidi Hammel, of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and a researcher on the project, said in the release. "But we predicted that such activity would have died down by now. Why we see these incredible storms now is beyond anybody's guess."

Marc Delcroix, a French amateur astronomer, and some of his peers made their own observations in Sept. and Oct.

"I was thrilled to see such activity on Uranus. Getting details on Mars, Jupiter or Saturn is now routine, but seeing detail on Uranus and Neptune is the new frontier for us amateurs and I did not want to miss that," Delcroix said in the release. "I was so happy to confirm myself these first amateur images on this bright storm on Uranus, feeling I was living a very special moment for planetary amateur astronomy."

The multi-institutional team presented their findings at the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences in Tucson, Ariz.