Stark new Saturn images give a detailed look at the ringed planet

By Kellen Beck

NASA released its annual images of the planet Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope Thursday, giving the citizens of earth an update on what’s been going on over at the solar system’s sixth planet.

The image above includes some impressive detail in the planet’s iconic rings where there are dozens of visible striations that circle around, as well as an updated look at the atmosphere with its gaseous bands and persistent hexagonal pattern at the north pole. The way the planet was tilted toward the telescope made for quite the shot.

Along with that image, NASA released a couple of short videos, including this one that goes into more detail about what the images show us.

One video shows that there was a large storm visible in 2018’s image of Saturn that has since abated.

A second video combines 33 images of Saturn taken over an 18-hour period, which shows a handful of the planet’s dozens of moons in orbit.

Along with these five moons, Saturn has 57 others hanging out around it. This doesn’t include the hundreds of moonlets floating within the planet’s ring system.

The new images are part of NASA’s Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project, which examines the atmospheric dynamics of the solar system’s gas giants, including Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, and helps scientists understand how they evolve over time.

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