Saturn: Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope Captures Summertime on the Lord of the Rings

Earth's summer season lies between spring and autumn; it is the hottest season of the year. Summer is associated with warm weather, vacations, and swimming bonding at the beach.

According to NASA, Earth is not the only planet that experiences different kinds of seasons. But like Earth, they too have four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They are only similar to names but are really different, especially in their duration.

Saturn, for example, can have one season that lasts for up to seven years. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was able to take a snapshot of its summertime on its northern hemisphere on July 4.

Hubble Space Telescope Captures Summertime on Saturn's Northern Hemisphere

Hubble Space Telescope's latest snapshot of Saturn has proven that it is indeed the lord of the rings. Located about 839 miles from Earth, the summertime image on Saturn's northern hemisphere is truly remarkable.

The same with each year that the Hubble observes the planet, a number of small atmospheric storms appear to come and go to the planet's surface. Several bands slightly change color from year to year as it remains visible on Saturn's northern hemisphere, as seen in Hubble's 2019 observations.

Saturn's atmosphere is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, and with some traces of hydrocarbons, ammonia, water vapor, ad methane, which gives its yellowish-brown color.

On July 4, Hubble Space Telescope captured a slightly reddish haze over the ringed planet's northern hemisphere. Scientists theorize that it could be caused by the heating from increased sunlight that could either remove the ice from the mist in the atmosphere or the change of atmospheric circulation.

Lead investigator Amy Simon of Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA said that it is amazing to see seasonal changes on Saturn even if it happens only over a few years.

On the other hand, the planet's South Pole has a blue hue, reflecting the winter season on Saturn.

Saturn: The Lord of the Rings

Not only did Hubble captured an image of Saturn's summertime it also photographed its finely etched concentric ring structure. It is mostly made up of ice that could be as tiny as grains and as big as boulders.

Scientists said that it remained the biggest mystery when these rings were formed. Others said that it is as old as the billion who is 4 billion years old now. However, because of its bright appearance that looks like freshly fallen snow, another theory suggests that the rings may have been formed at the time when dinosaurs emerged on Earth.

Nonetheless, a lot of astronomers believe that no one theory can satisfactorily explain the origin of Saturn's rings that could have been formed within a few hundred million years.

According to team member Michael Wong from the University of California, Berkeley, NASA's Cassini spacecraft measurements of tiny grains of Saturn's atmosphere suggest it could be 300 million years old.

The image taken by Hubble shows two of Saturn's icy moons, the Mimas at the right and Enceladus at the bottom. Scientists are trying to understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of the gas giant planets in the solar system under the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project.