Rings and Seasons of Saturn
On Saturn, the rings tell you the season.
On Earth, today marks a solstice, the time when the Earth's spin axis tilts directly toward the Sun. On Earth's northern hemisphere, today is the Summer Solstice, the day of maximum daylight.
Since Saturn's grand rings orbit along the planet's equator, these rings appear most prominent -- from the direction of the Sun -- when the Saturn's spin axis points toward the Sun. Conversely, when Saturn's spin axis points to the side, an equinox occurs and the edge-on rings are hard to see.
In the featured montage, images of Saturn over the past 11 years have been superposed to show the giant planet passing from southern summer toward northern summer. Although Saturn will only reach its northern summer solstice in 2017 May, the image of Saturn most analogous to today's Earth solstice is the bottommost one.
Photo and explanation via APOD
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150621.html
#nasa #apod #saturn #solstice #space
That may look good as an animation. The rings like those on a slinky spring, with a ball in the middle
ReplyDeleteMy friend and I visited the Griffith Observatory in 1985. They had their large telescope open for the public to view Saturn. It was a special day for not only you could clearly see the rings of Saturn but all four moons in a box like pattern. What I found very interesting is the telescope gave Saturn this 3D look. Like you could reach out and touch it. The astronomer said, enjoy the view for you won't see this image ever again in your lifetime.
ReplyDeleteWhat was amusing is there were people walking away stating that what they saw was fake. They were convinced it was just a model dangling inside of the telescope. They even walked to front of the scope to see if they could see the model to prove they were right.