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SATURN’S RINGS
ARE ACTING STRANGE

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New images of Saturn from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope
herald the start of the planet’s “spoke season.”

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Whenever Saturn has its autumnal or vernal equinox,
strange spokes appear across the planet’s rings.

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However, their cause and
seasonal nature are still unclear.

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Scientists suspect the cause is the planet’s magnetic field.

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The solar wind sends charged particles
into planets’ magnetic fields…

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…On Earth this causes the northern and southern lights.

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Icy ring particles can become charged, temporarily
levitating them above the rest of the ring.

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At its autumnal equinox (May 2025),
the spokes should become more prominent.

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Saturn’s tilted axis gives it four seasons like Earth,
but each lasts about seven Earth years due to its larger orbit.

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Saturn’s last equinox was in 2009, when
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured these images.

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Hubble continued monitoring Saturn
after Cassini’s mission ended in 2017.

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Hubble supplies visual and spectroscopic data
in ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths.

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This data will form a fuller picture
of the spoke phenomenon, revealing intricacies of ring physics.

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