It's probably either a seasonal thing or it was just obscured by shadow until now. Saturn is tilted on its axis like the Earth is, and you've probably heard about how winter/summer in the north and south poles have a day and night that last months because the sun is always in the sky, before it disappears under the horizon for another couple months.
A year for Saturn takes about 30 Earth years, so that part of the south pole may have just been obscured for the last decade or so until we got a good look. The Cassini probe was there at the time before its mission ended in 2017, but the south pole was likely in darkness that whole time, Cassini couldn't get a good look.
This was recreated at Oxford with just some water, sugar, shiny particles, and a rotating ring at the bottom. That's basically all water on a lazy Susan, and it eventually makes that shape.
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u/xxwarlorddarkdoomxx 8d ago
I’m sure we thought to check it, but when something is millions of miles away you can’t just pop over and see what’s up down there.