No, Saturn isn't tipping over — it's just changing seasons.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a view of changes in Saturn's vast and turbulent atmosphere as the planet transitions to fall, as shown in this series of images.
These small year-to-year changes in Saturn’s color bands are fascinating. As Saturn moves towards fall in its northern hemisphere, we see the polar and equatorial regions changing, but we are also seeing that the atmosphere varies on much shorter timescales.
Saturn is the sixth planet from our Sun and orbits at a distance of about 886 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) from the Sun. It takes around 29 Earth years to orbit the Sun, making each season on Saturn more than seven Earth years long.
Earth is tilted with respect to the Sun, which alters the amount of sunlight each hemisphere receives as our planet moves in its orbit. This variation in solar energy is what drives our seasonal changes.
Saturn is tilted also, so as the seasons change on that distant world, the change in sunlight could be causing some of the observed atmospheric changes.
Read more:
go.nasa.gov/30ViPdC
Credits: NASA/ESA/STScI/A. Simon/R. Roth
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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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