It is summer on Saturn, and rarely have Earthlings had such a clear view of it. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a new image of the planet, showing its rings in stunningly clear detail.
© NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), MH Wong (University of California, Berkeley), a …
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NASA called Saturn the “lord of the rings” in its recent announcement about the new image, which was taken on July 4. At that time, the planet was 839 million miles from Earth, visible as a bright point of light with the naked eye.
The photo was taken as part of the Legacy Atmospheres Outer Planets project, which is helping scientists study the gas giants of our solar system. Astronomers are eager to track the changing weather patterns and storms on Saturn to potentially understand its evolution.
The image highlights summer in the planet’s northern hemisphere, NASA said. Not only is it impressive, but it captures important details of the planet’s changing climate.
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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Saturn on July 4, 2020. / Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), MH Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team
A series of small atmospheric storms are visible, as well as the color change of the bands from year to year.
The reddish haze that can be seen in the northern hemisphere may be due to increased heat from the coming sun during the summer. Heat may be affecting circulation or ice in the atmosphere, or sunlight may be affecting the production of photochemical turbidity, NASA said.
