Getting wider… our evolving view of Saturn’s rings. Image credit and copyright: Andrew Symes
Posted on 05/12/2015 7:26:45 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Saturn reaches opposition for 2015 on May 23rd at 1:00 Universal Time (UT), which equates to 9:00 PM EDT the evening prior on May 22 at nearly 9 astronomical units (AU) distant. Oppositions of Saturn are getting slightly more distant to the tune of 10 million kilometers in 2015 versus last year as Saturn heads towards aphelion in 2018. Saturn crosses eastward from the astronomical constellation of Scorpius in the first week of May, and spends most of the remainder of 2015 in Libra before looping back into the Scorpion in mid-October. The first of June finds Saturn just over a degree southward of the +4th magnitude star Theta Librae. Saturn takes nearly 30 Earth years to complete one orbit, meaning that it was right around the same position in the sky in 1985, and will appear so again in 2045. Relatively speedy Jupiter also overtakes Saturn as seen from the Earth about once every 20 years, as it last did on 2000 and is set to do so again in 2020.
...series of occultations of Saturn by the Moon wrapped up in 2014 and won’t resume again until December 9, 2018, there’s also a good chance to spy Saturn two degrees away from the daytime Moon with binoculars on June 1st just 24 hours prior to Full:
The tilt of the rings of Saturn is also slowly widening from our Earthbound perspective. At opposition, Saturn’s rings subtend 43” across, and the ochre disk of Saturn itself spans 19”. Incidentally, on a good pass, the International Station has a visual span roughly equivalent to Saturn plus rings. In 2015, the rings are tilted 24 degrees wide and headed for a maximum approaching 27 degrees in 2017. The rings appeared edge on in 2009 and will do so again in 2025.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Saturn Ping.
(Not the car)
Wow, are the colors reasonably real?
#1 We need the UN to help stop Saturn from tilting!
Raise taxes or something.
I think so.
Something I’ve wondered and not found an answer over the years. Why are the planets in a common plane configuration rather than rotate around the sun in different planes like electrons around a nucleus?
Perhaps because they all coalesced from the same protoplanetary disk?
Good point. Possibly. I always envisioned matter traveling randomly through space getting captured by the sun but it didn’t fit a plane. Thanks.
Yes, it matches reality and theory. If it were otherwise it would be quite odd.
If you like odd, Google - saturn hexagon.
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