Hubble telescope spies mysterious shadows on Saturn’s rings

 

Hubble telescope spies mysterious shadows on Saturn’s rings.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured a newly revealed image of the mysterious, ghostly shadows on Saturn’s rings — the latest sighting of the so-called “spokes” that continue to baffle scientists.

The composite photo, released Thursday by NASA, was taken by Hubble on October 22 as Saturn was about 850 million miles (1.37 billion kilometers) away, according to the space agency. The space observatory has been orbiting Earth just a few hundred miles above the surface for more than three decades.

Astronomers have long known about the perplexing spokes on Saturn’s rings, which look like apparitions skating along the rings and can be spotted in various locations depending on where the planet is in its orbital cycle. Over time, observations have revealed that the number and appearance of the spokes can vary depending on Saturn’s seasonal cycle. Similar to Earth, the planet has an axis with a tilt that causes seasonal changes, though each season on Saturn lasts about seven years, according to NASA.

Hubble is set to observe the unexplained phenomenon at peak activity as researchers aim to unravel its secrets.
“We are heading towards Saturn equinox, when we’d expect maximum spoke activity, with higher frequency and darker spokes appearing over the next few years,” said Amy Simon, the lead scientist of Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy, or OPAL, program, in a statement. Simon is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center  in Greenbelt, Maryland. Saturn’s autumnal equinox is expected to occur on May 6, 2025.