Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team KeywordsĪ name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. In Saturn's case, astronomers continue tracking shifting weather patterns and storms.Ĭredits NASA, ESA, A. OPAL is helping scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of our solar system's gas giant planets. This image is taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. Two of Saturn's icy moons are clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at bottom. "However, NASA's Cassini spacecraft measurements of tiny grains raining into Saturn's atmosphere suggest the rings can only last for 300 million more years, which is one of the arguments for a young age of the ring system," said team member Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley. Many astronomers agree that there is no satisfactory theory that explains how rings could have formed within just the past few hundred million years. But because the rings are so bright – like freshly fallen snow – a competing theory is that they may have formed during the age of the dinosaurs. Conventional wisdom is that they are as old as the planet, over 4 billion years. Just how and when the rings formed remains one of our solar system's biggest mysteries. The rings are mostly made of pieces of ice, with sizes ranging from tiny grains to giant boulders. Hubble's sharp view resolves the finely etched concentric ring structure. Conversely, the just-now-visible south pole has a blue hue, reflecting changes in Saturn's winter hemisphere. "It's amazing that even over a few years, we're seeing seasonal changes on Saturn," said lead investigator Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Another theory is that the increased sunlight in the summer months is changing the amounts of photochemical haze produced. This may be due to heating from increased sunlight, which could either change the atmospheric circulation or perhaps remove ices from aerosols in the atmosphere. Hubble photographed a slight reddish haze over the northern hemisphere in this color composite. The ringed planet's atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrocarbons that give it a yellowish-brown color. The banding in the northern hemisphere remains pronounced as seen in Hubble's 2019 observations, with several bands slightly changing color from year to year. These are transient features that appear to come and go with each yearly Hubble observation. Hubble found a number of small atmospheric storms. This new Saturn image was taken during summer in the planet's northern hemisphere. Saturn is truly the lord of the rings in this latest snapshot from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, taken on July 4, 2020, when the opulent giant world was 839 million miles from Earth. Four Successful Women Behind the Hubble Space Telescope's Achievements.Characterizing Planets Around Other Stars.Measuring the Universe's Expansion Rate.Smaller stars, on the other hand, live life in the slow lane and are predicted to exist for trillions of years, well beyond the current age of the Universe. Stars like the Sun typically have more sedentary lifestyles and live longer, burning for approximately ten billion years. Similarly, brilliant blue hues indicate hot, young, or massive stars, many times the mass of the Sun.Ī star’s mass decides its fate more massive stars burn brightly over a short lifespan, and die young after only tens of millions of years. These lower-mass stars are called red dwarfs and are thought to be the most common type of star within the Milky Way. Shades of red indicate a star much cooler than the Sun, so either at the end of its life, or much less massive. The colour of a star can reveal many of its secrets. This blue litter most likely formed at the same time from the same collapsing molecular cloud. Blue stars can be seen scattered across the frame, set against a distant backdrop of red-hued cosmic companions. This colourful and star-studded view of the Milky Way galaxy was captured when the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope pointed its cameras towards the constellation of Sagittarius ( The Archer).
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