Posted on 07/24/2020 7:46:15 AM PDT by zeestephen
Saturn is truly the lord of the rings in this latest snapshot from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, taken on July 4, 2020, when the opulent giant world was 839 million miles from Earth. This new Saturn image was taken during summer in the planet’s northern hemisphere...Two of Saturn’s icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at the bottom. [Photo in Comment #1 or at link]
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
Even in the Summertime, on Saturn, the Livin’ Ain’t Easy.
Hardly an human definition of summer.
Summer on Saturn’s northern hemisphere. This is a good time to view Saturn’s rings. Saturn is near opposition, with the earth between Saturn and the sun, and the rings are tilted towards the earth. The solstice on Saturn was on May 24th, 2017. Since Saturn’s orbit is 29.5 times as long as earths, the season on Saturn is like late July on earth.
Are the rings around the equator on Saturn ?
Will the near opposition occur again in about 365+9 days ?
29.5/365.25
Looks like the camera has a pixel burned out just under the planet.
Hot town, Uranus in the city.....
Could that burned-out pixel be a moon?
That’s not a moon, it’s a space station.
Then we realized that it was the rings that made elliptical.
Really exiting.
Exactly - I wanted to see if anyone would get it!
The rings are (and must be) aligned with the equator.
The synodic period of Saturn with respect to Earth is 378.08 days.
The synodic period of a planet (time for it to return to same relative relationship with respect to the earth and sun) is given by:
T_synodic = 1/(1/T_earth - 1/T_planet)
= 1/(1 - 1/29.46) = 1.035 years = 378.08 days
Where T_synodic is time for the planet to return to the same relative relation to earth and sun
T_earth = sidereal period of earth orbit
T_planet = sidereal period of planet’s orbit
For inner planets (Venus and Mercury) multiply times -1. (In a solar system where planets orbit in different directions, change the minus sign in the denominator to a plus sign.)
From the linked article:
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Saturn on July 4, 2020. Two of Saturn’s icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at bottom.
Yep... Another one at 3-o'clock as well... Piss-poor photography... Snicker...
I think the radiation does it out there...or more moons.
I discovered two new moons off to the left!
Oh.
Just potato chip crumbs.
Sorry.
*ping*
Thanks fmdj.
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