Jul 26, 2020 21:00:00

NASA releases the latest Saturn photos taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, you can check the seasonal changes of Saturn

On July 24, 2020, the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) used the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph ``a photo of Saturn at a position of 838 million miles (about 1.35 billion km) from the earth''. published. The photo was taken on July 4, 2020, so the northern hemisphere of Saturn was taken in the summer.

Hubble Sees Summertime on Saturn | NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/index.html

The latest Saturn photos released by NASA are below. The photo was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope on July 4, 2020 as part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project, with a small dot glowing at the bottom of Saturn, Saturn's second moon Enceladus , and a glowing point on the right. Is Saturn's first satellite, Mimas .

On planets with rings like Saturn, most of the atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, helium, ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrocarbons, so it looks yellowish brown. However, this color seems to change slightly every year when it is photographed.

The latest Saturn photo taken with the Hubble Space Telescope shows a 'slightly reddish haze' on the northern hemisphere side (upper half). It has been suggested that this is due to increased sunlight heating in the summer and may also alter atmospheric circulation and remove ice from atmospheric aerosols. Another theory explains that the increase in sunlight during the summer changed the amount of photochemical haze produced, resulting in the appearance of reddish haze. On the other hand, Saturn's southern hemisphere (lower half) is bluish, which reflects Saturn's winter.

``It's amazing that Saturn's seasonal changes can be seen in the photos, even over the years,'' said Amy Simon, a senior researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center . I am.

Saturn's rings are mostly made up of ice pieces and have been shown to be of various sizes, from small to large. How and when this ring is formed remains one of the major mysteries within the solar system. Traditional wisdom suggests that the ring of a planet has existed as old as the planet itself, and that the ring of Saturn has existed for over 4 billion years. However, the ring is so bright that some researchers argue that it may have formed during the Mesozoic era . Many astronomers believe that there is no satisfactory theory to explain how the ring was formed in the last hundreds of millions of years, but small particles pouring into Saturn's atmosphere as measured by NASA's Cassini. Suggests that the lifespan of the ring has been over 300 million years.