Saturn changed color and Hubble watched – BGR

Apart from Earth, Saturn is probably the most instantly recognizable of the planets in our solar system. It’s the only planet with bold, easily visible rings – other planets, such as Uranus, have rings too, but they’re nowhere near as opaque – and you’d never confuse it with another world in our tiny starry neighborhood. However, that doesn’t mean it never changes, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope recently noticed some very interesting color shifts on the planet.

In a new post on NASA’s website, the space agency highlights an article published in Planetary Science Journal where scientists reveal the subtle color changes on Saturn. The rings of the planet don’t change much from season to season, but the colors of the planet itself certainly do. A single year on Saturn equals 29 Earth years, so we see seasonal changes happening very slowly, but it’s clear that something is happening beneath the clouds.

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In fact, the planet’s tires changed in remarkable ways in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The scientists provided a nice animated image to make the color changes more apparent. Check it out for yourself:

It may not be immediately apparent, but focus on the center to top of the planet globe and watch the rings change. New rings form, some areas that were brighter become darker, and the dark area at the planet’s north pole spreads downward significantly. These are some pretty big changes, especially over the course of just three years, and it points to some very interesting things that are happening in the planet’s atmosphere and possibly below it.

“These little changes from year to year in Saturn’s color bands are fascinating. As Saturn moves to fall in its northern hemisphere, we see the polar and equatorial regions change, but we also see that the atmosphere varies on much shorter time scales, ”said Amy Simon, lead author of the study. “What we found was a slight change from year to year in color, possibly cloud height and wind – unsurprisingly, the changes aren’t huge, considering we’re only looking at a small portion of a Saturn year. We expect big changes on a seasonal timetable, so this shows the progression to the next season. “

Perhaps most interesting about seeing such changes in Saturn’s visible upper layer is what it could mean for the changes taking place deeper on the planet. No one really knows what lurks in gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter, and it is possible that some or all of these planets have solid inner cores surrounded by liquids and gases. We don’t yet have the technology to peep deep through the thick cloud layers, but one day we could, and those observations could give us the clues that reveal where the colors are coming from and what triggers the changes.

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