Hubble Space Telescope Images Reveal Changing Seasons on Saturn

The Hubble Space Telescope of NASA has given astronomers a view of changing seasons on Saturn as the northern hemisphere summer transmission to fall, of the planet, as revealed in the series of images captured in the years 2018, 2019, and 2020.

According to planetary scientist Amy Simon, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, these small year-to-year changes in color bands of Saturn are captivating.

Simon, who is the lead author of a study of these observations added, as Saturn is moving towards the fall season in its northern hemisphere, polar and equatorial regions are seen changing.

However, she also explained, they are also seeing that the atmosphere differs on much longer timescales.

In their paper published in Planetary Science Journal, the lead author said they what discovered was a slight change in color from year-to-year, possibly the height of clouds, and winds, not surprising that such changes are not big, as they are only looking at a small portion of a Saturn year.

Simon also elaborated they expect big changes on a seasonal period, and thus, this is showing the development towards the following season.

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The Equator Seen Brighter

The Hubble data revealed that from the year 2018 until 2020, the equator turned brighter from five to 10 percent, and there was a slight change in the winds, too.

Specifically, in 2018, winds gauged close to the equator were roughly 1,000 miles per hour, higher than those gauged by the Cassini spacecraft of NASA from 2004 to 2009 when they were roughly 800 miles per hour.

Then, in 2019 and 2020, they reduced back to the seeds of the Cassini. The winds of Saturn also change with altitude, so, the variation in measured speeds could potentially mean the clouds in 2018 were approximately 37 miles deeper compared to those gauged during the Cassini spacecraft mission.

A NASA report indicated that further observations are needed to determine which is occurring. Further observations are needed to tell which is happening.

Planet Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Earth's Sun and orbits at an approximately 886-million-mile distance from the Sun.

This said report specified that it takes roughly 29 Earth years to orbit the Sun, making every season on the said sixth planet more than seven Earth years long.

In addition, this planet is tilted with respect to the Sun, which is alerting the amount of sunlight every hemisphere is receiving as the planet moves in its orbit. Such a variation ins solar energy is what's driving Earth's seasonal changes.

Like Earth, Saturn is also tilted. Therefore, as the seasons are changing in that distant world, the change in sunlight could be resulting in some of the atmospheric changes observed.

The largest planet of the solar system, Saturn, like Jupiter, is also described as a 'gas giant' mostly made of hydrogen and helium, though there may exist a rocky core deep inside.

The Hubble Space Telescope and Saturn Observations

The Saturn observations are part of the Outer Planets Atmosphere Legacy or OPAL program of Hubble. This program, Simon, principal investigator for the program explained, enables them to observe each of the outer planets with Hubble year after year, allowing new discoveries and watching how each of the planets changes over time.

On the other hand, the Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international collaboration between NASA and the European Agency or ESA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland manages the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute or STScI conducts the science operations of Hubble.

The NASA Goddard YouTube video below shows Hubble's then-new image of Saturn: