The Hubble Space Telescope has been orbiting the Earth for more than 30 years and it never ceases to amaze us every day . Earlier this month, Hubble turned his gaze to Saturn and captured a very sharp image of this large planet, some 1.35 billion kilometers away . Right now, it’s summer in Saturn’s northern hemisphere, which, as we can see, means that its upper northern half is tilted toward us (and the Sun).
But it is not a summer as we are used to, but the gas giant gets most of the heat from its interior, instead of the Sun, and the average temperature is -178 degrees Celsius.
What does this new image bring us?
In the image you can see two of the 82 moons of Saturn : Mimas, the small point to the right of the image, and Enceladus, the slightly larger point at the bottom of the photograph. Also, you will see that there is a slight red haze in the northern hemisphere. NASA believes this could be due to heat from sunlight changing atmospheric circulation or altering the planet’s photochemical haze. And the south pole has a slightly blue hue.
Have you noticed that each photo of Saturn looks slightly different?
“It’s surprising that even in a few years, we’re seeing seasonal changes on Saturn, ” says planetary scientist Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Thanks to these close-ups, scientists can remotely monitor our solar system without costly and long-term missions on each of the planets.
Reference: NASA
