In the 1990s, the number of the observed bright cloud features grew considerably partly because new high-resolution imaging techniques became available. Most were found in the northern hemisphere as it started to become visible. An early explanation—that bright clouds are easier to identify in its dark part, whereas in the southern hemisphere the bright collar masks them – was shown to be incorrect. Nevertheless there are differences between the clouds of each hemisphere. The northern clouds are smaller, sharper and brighter. They appear to lie at a higher altitude. The lifetime of clouds spans several orders of magnitude. Some small clouds live for hours; at least one southern cloud may have persisted since the "Voyager 2" flyby. Recent observation also discovered that cloud features on Uranus have a lot in common with those on Neptune. For example, the dark spots common on Neptune had never been observed on Uranus before 2006, when the first such feature dubbed Uranus Dark Spot was imaged. The speculation is that Uranus is becoming more Neptune-like during its equinoctial season.