File:Spokes Spotted In Saturn's Rings (opo2305a).jpg
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DescriptionSpokes Spotted In Saturn's Rings (opo2305a).jpg |
English: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observation time devoted to Saturn each year, thanks to the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, and the dynamic gas giant planet always shows us something new. This latest image heralds the start of Saturn's "spoke season" with the appearance of two smudgy spokes in the B ring, on the left in the image.The spokes are enigmatic features which appear across Saturn’s rings. Their presence and appearance varies with the seasons — like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis and therefore has four seasons. With Saturn's much larger orbit, each season lasts approximately seven Earth years. Equinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun and marks the height of spokes’ visibility, while during a solstice when the Sun is at its highest or lowest latitude, the spokes disappear.The shape and shading of spokes varies — they can appear light or dark, depending on the viewing angle, and sometimes appear more like blobs than classic radial spoke shapes, as seen here. The ephemeral features don't last long, but as the planet's autumnal equinox approaches on 6 May 2025, more will appear.Scientists will be looking for clues to explain the cause and nature of the spokes. It's suspected they are caused by interaction between Saturn's magnetic field and the solar wind, which also causes aurorae to appear on the planet. The hypothesis is that spokes are the smallest, dust-sized, icy ring particles being temporarily electrically charged and levitated, but this has not been confirmed.Saturn's last equinox occurred in 2009, while the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft was orbiting the gas giant planet for close-up reconnaissance. With Cassini's mission completed in 2017, Hubble is continuing the work of long-term monitoring of changes on Saturn and the other outer planets.[Image description: A close-up image of the planet Saturn. The rings are level with the viewer, and tilted slightly down.] |
Date | 9 February 2023 (upload date) |
Source | Spokes Spotted In Saturn's Rings |
Author | ESA/Hubble, NASA & A. Simon, A. Pagan (STScI) |
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ESA/Hubble images, videos and web texts are released by the ESA under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided they are clearly and visibly credited. Detailed conditions are below; see the ESA copyright statement for full information. For images created by NASA or on the hubblesite.org website, or for ESA/Hubble images on the esahubble.org site before 2009, use the {{PD-Hubble}} tag.
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Attribution: ESA/Hubble
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current | 16:58, 16 April 2023 | 1,256 × 599 (96 KB) | imagescommonswiki>OptimusPrimeBot | #Spacemedia - Upload of https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/large/opo2305a.jpg via Commons:Spacemedia |
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Author | Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach |
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Image title |
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Date and time of data generation | 15:00, 9 February 2023 |
Software used | Adobe Photoshop 23.5 (Macintosh) |
File change date and time | 13:15, 11 January 2023 |
Credit/Provider | ESA/Hubble, NASA & A. Simon, A. Pagan (STScI) |
Source | ESA/Hubble |
Date and time of digitizing | 03:47, 7 December 2022 |
Date metadata was last modified | 09:54, 11 January 2023 |
Unique ID of original document | xmp.did:14d70af3-70b8-472b-92b8-146a1138dbb4 |
Copyright status | Copyright status not set |
Short title |
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Keywords | Saturn |
Usage terms |
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Contact information | outreach@stsci.edu
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr Baltimore, MD, 21218 United States |
IIM version | 4 |
JPEG file comment | NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has observation time devoted to Saturn each year, thanks to the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, and the dynamic gas giant planet always shows us something new. This latest image heralds the start of Saturn’s “spoke season” with the appearance of two smudgy spokes in the B ring, on the left in the image. The shape and shading of spokes varies—they can appear light or dark, depending on the viewing angle, and sometimes appear more like blobs than classic radial spoke shapes, as seen here. The ephemeral features don’t last long, but as the planet’s autumnal equinox approaches on May 6, 2025, more will appear. Scientists will be looking for clues to explain the cause and nature of the spokes. It’s suspected they are ring material that is temporarily charged and levitated by interaction between Saturn’s magnetic field and the solar wind, but this hypothesis has not been confirmed. |