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    Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program tagged posts

    Hubble captures the start of a new Spoke Season at Saturn

    February 14, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Saturn and its rings fill the view. Saturn has yellow, reddish-brown, and tan stripes. Saturn's rings are tilted slightly, allowing us to see ring bands along with the wide dark band called the Cassini Division.
    NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has observation time devoted to Saturn each year, thanks to the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, and the dynamic gas giant planet always shows us something new. This latest image heralds the start of Saturn’s “spoke season” with the appearance of two smudgy spokes in the B ring, on the left in the image. The shape and shading of spokes varies – they can appear light or dark, depending on the viewing angle, and sometimes appear more like blobs than classic radial spoke shapes, as seen here. The ephemeral features don’t last long, but as the planet’s autumnal equinox approaches on May 6, 2025, more will appear. Scientists will be looking for clues to explain the cause and nature of the spokes...
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