Astronomy Picture of the Day - Titan Shadow Transit

NASA ^ | 24 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Volodymyr Andrienko

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Every 15 years or so, Saturn's rings are tilted edge-on to our line of sight. As the bright, beautiful ring system grows narrower and fainter it becomes increasingly difficult to see for denizens of planet Earth. But it does provide the opportunity to watch transits of Saturn's moons and their dark shadows across the ringed gas giant's still bright disk. Of course Saturn's largest moon Titan is the easiest to spot in transit. In this telescopic snapshot from July 18, Titan itself is at the upper left, casting a round dark shadow on Saturn's banded cloudtops above the narrow rings. In fact Titan's transit season is in full swing now with shadow transits every 16 days corresponding to the moon's orbital period. Its final shadow transit will be on October 6, though Titan's pale disk will continue to cross in front of Saturn as seen from telescopes on planet Earth every 16 days through January 25, 2026.

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TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[No name given]

Wow.

[telescope115]

Awesome. I have not seen a shadow transit on Saturn! Jupiter, many times, but not Saturn.

[HandyDandy]

When you stop to think about it, what we are seeing in that photo is absolutely incomprehensible! The who, what, when, why, where……… boggles the mind! So, it’s best not to think about it.

[redinIllinois]

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