NASA captures summer on Saturn in a striking new snapshot of the Hubble Space Telescope
- The newly released image was taken by the observatory in orbit on July 4, 2020
- Gaseous Giant’s Northern Hemisphere Appears Redder in Summer Sunlight
- Meanwhile, his ring is shiny as “freshly fallen snow” and the south pole is blue
- Two of the planet’s moons, Enceladus and Mimas, can also be seen in the shot.
NASA captured the summer on Saturn in a striking snapshot released today by the Hubble Space Telescope, which also reveals an icy blue south pole.
The astonishing shot, which shows how the gas giant’s bands appear redder in the highest levels of sunlight, was taken by the orbiting observatory on July 4, 2020.
Astronomers said Saturn’s rings, seen from a distance of 839 million miles from Earth, are so bright in the image that they look like ‘freshly fallen snow’.
NASA captured the summer on Saturn in a surprising new photographed snapshot taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which also reveals an icy blue south pole
Two of Saturn’s icy moons are also clearly visible in the exhibit: the tiny Mimas on the right of the image and Icy Enceladus at the bottom.
Saturn’s atmosphere, which is primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, with traces of ammonia, hydrocarbons, methane, and water vapor, gives the planet its yellowish-brown color.
However, the reddish haze seen over the northern hemisphere in the image suggests that the summer months may change the amount of photochemical haze produced, or alternatively alter atmospheric circulation and remove ice from aerosols.
NASA experts also noted the south pole in the image, which sports a blue hue, reflecting changes in Saturn’s winter hemisphere.
“It is surprising that even in a few years, we are seeing seasonal changes on Saturn,” said planetary scientist Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
NASA researchers said the reason why Saturn has concentric rings, which are made of chunks of ice ranging in size from small grains to giant rocks, remains a mystery.
The Convention argues that the rings are around four billion years old, like the planet itself, although a competitive theory has proposed that the rings formed a few hundred million years ago.
The astonishing shot, which shows how the gas giant’s bands look redder in the highest levels of sunlight, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, pictured on July 4, 2020.
“Measurements by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft of small grains raining down into Saturn’s atmosphere suggest that the rings can only last 300 million years longer,” said astronomer Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley.
This, he added, “is one of the arguments for an early age of the ring system.”
This image was taken as part of the Legacy Atmospheres Outer Planets project, which aims to develop our understanding of atmospheric dynamics and the evolution of gas giants in our solar system.
In fact, the recent Hubble snapshot revealed a series of small atmospheric storms, temporary features that are seen to come and go each time the telescope trains annually on Saturn.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is still operational and has made more than 1.3 million observations since its mission began in 1990.
The Hubble Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, via the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It is named after the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble who was born in Missouri in 1889.
Arguably he is most famous for discovering that the universe is expanding and the rate at which it is expanding now coined the Hubble constant.
The Hubble telescope is named after the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble who was born in Missouri in 1889 (pictured)
Hubble has made more than 1.3 million observations since its mission began in 1990 and helped publish more than 15,000 scientific articles.
It orbits Earth at a speed of approximately 17,000 mph (27,300kph) in low Earth orbit at approximately 340 miles of altitude.
Hubble has a pointing accuracy of .007 arcseconds, which is like being able to shine a focused laser beam on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s head on a dime about 200 miles (320 km) away .
The Hubble telescope is named after Edwin Hubble, who was responsible for finding the Hubble constant and is one of the best astronomers of all time.
Hubble’s primary mirror is 2.4 meters (7 feet, 10.5 inches) wide and in total is 13.3 meters (43.5 feet) long, the length of a large school bus.
Hubble’s launch and deployment in April 1990 marked the most significant advance in astronomy since the Galileo telescope.
Thanks to five service missions and more than 25 years of operation, our vision of the universe and our place within it has never been the same.
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