Hubble sees summertime on Saturn

Date:
July 23, 2020
Source:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Summary:
Saturn is truly the lord of the rings in this latest snapshot from
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, taken on July 4, 2020, when the
opulent giant world was 839 million miles from Earth. A new Saturn
image was taken during summer in the planet's northern hemisphere.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== [NASA's Hubble Space | Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL
Team] NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Saturn on
July 4, 2020.

Two of Saturn's icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at
right, and Enceladus at bottom. This image is taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. OPAL is helping scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of our solar system's
gas giant planets. In Saturn's case, astronomers continue tracking
shifting weather patterns and storms.

Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team [NASA's Hubble
Space | Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center),
M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team] NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Saturn on July 4, 2020.

Two of Saturn's icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at
right, and Enceladus at bottom. This image is taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. OPAL is helping scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of our solar system's
gas giant planets. In Saturn's case, astronomers continue tracking
shifting weather patterns and storms.

Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team Close Saturn is
truly the lord of the rings in this latest snapshot from NASA's Hubble
Space Telescope, taken on July 4, 2020, when the opulent giant world
was 839 million miles from Earth. This new Saturn image was taken during
summer in the planet's northern hemisphere.


========================================================================== Hubble found a number of small atmospheric storms. These are
transient features that appear to come and go with each yearly Hubble observation. The banding in the northern hemisphere remains pronounced
as seen in Hubble's 2019 observations, with several bands slightly
changing color from year to year. The ringed planet's atmosphere is
mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of ammonia, methane, water vapor,
and hydrocarbons that give it a yellowish-brown color.

Hubble photographed a slight reddish haze over the northern hemisphere
in this color composite. This may be due to heating from increased
sunlight, which could either change the atmospheric circulation or
perhaps remove ices from aerosols in the atmosphere. Another theory is
that the increased sunlight in the summer months is changing the amounts
of photochemical haze produced. "It's amazing that even over a few years,
we're seeing seasonal changes on Saturn," said lead investigator Amy Simon
of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Conversely,
the just-now-visible south pole has a blue hue, reflecting changes in
Saturn's winter hemisphere.

Hubble's sharp view resolves the finely etched concentric ring
structure. The rings are mostly made of pieces of ice, with sizes ranging
from tiny grains to giant boulders. Just how and when the rings formed
remains one of our solar system's biggest mysteries. Conventional wisdom
is that they are as old as the planet, over 4 billion years. But because
the rings are so bright -- like freshly fallen snow -- a competing theory
is that they may have formed during the age of the dinosaurs. Many
astronomers agree that there is no satisfactory theory that explains
how rings could have formed within just the past few hundred million
years. "However, NASA's Cassini spacecraft measurements of tiny grains
raining into Saturn's atmosphere suggest the rings can only last for
300 million more years, which is one of the arguments for a young age
of the ring system," said team member Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley.

Two of Saturn's icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas
at right, and Enceladus at bottom.

This image is taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. OPAL is helping scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics
and evolution of our solar system's gas giant planets. In Saturn's case, astronomers continue tracking shifting weather patterns and storms.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
NASA/Goddard_Space_Flight_Center. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Related Multimedia:
* Hubble_image_of_Saturn ==========================================================================


Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200723143759.htm

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