Categories: Saturn

Naked Saturn

Saturn on August 12, 2009 just after equinox. Credit: NASA

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Here’s one of the first raw images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft just after equinox, on August 12, 2009. The planet sure looks naked without its rings! But not to fear, the rings are still there; we just can’t see them very well — only a thin line. That’s because the sun was shining directly straight-on at the rings at Saturn’s equinox, and the spacecraft was in the right place, too. Equinox occurs every half-Saturn-year which is equivalent to about 15 Earth years. The illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun’s angle to the ringplane and causes out-of-plane structures and some moons to cast long shadows across the rings. The ring shadows themselves have become a rapidly narrowing band cast onto the planet. Below, see another image with the rings visible as the spacecraft changed its angle.

Saturn's rings at equinox. Credit: NASA

Check out more raw images from the equinox here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/