The Hubble telescope recorded mysterious shadows on the rings of Saturn
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Recently, the Hubble Space Telescope took another image of the mysterious shadows on Saturn’s rings, which are also called “spokes”.
CNN writes about this with reference to NASA.
Hubble took the image of Saturn on October 22, when the telescope was 1.37 billion kilometers away from it.
Astronomers have long known about the mysterious “spokes” on Saturn’s rings that “look like ghosts.” They can be seen in different places depending on where the planet is in its orbital cycle.
| Photo: NASA |
Astronomers have also discovered a certain pattern: the number and appearance of the spokes can change depending on Saturn’s seasonal cycle. They may appear small in images, but may actually be larger than Earth in width and diameter.
Like Earth, Saturn has a tilted axis that causes seasonal changes, although one season on the spoked planet lasts about 7 years.
“We are approaching Saturn’s equinox, when we expect maximum spoke activity, with more frequent and darker spokes appearing over the next few years” said Amy Simon, lead scientist for the Hubble Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program.
She added that Saturn’s fall equinox is expected on May 6, 2025.
It will be recalled that earlier scientists suggested that Saturn’s rings may disappear. And a few years earlier, astronomers assumed that the rings of Saturn did not always exist.
Read also: Saturn again became the planet with the largest number of satellites
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