![]() 8, 2022, the Webb team fully deployed the telescope's 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror, successfully completing the final stage of all major spacecraft deployments to prepare for science operations. ![]() The spacecraft separated from the rocket 27 minutes into the flight at an altitude of approximately 870 miles (1,400 kilometers). This article is based on text provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.The James Webb Space Telescope is on its own after separating from the Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket that launched it into space. Geophysical Research Letters, published online Februdoi: 10.1029/2022GL101904 Hubble Detects the Start of a New Saturn Ring Spoke Season. The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.Īmy A. “It’s a fascinating magic trick of nature we only see on Saturn - for now at least.” “Whether spokes could or do occur at other ringed planets is currently unknown.” “While our Solar System’s other three gas giant planets also have ring systems, nothing compares to Saturn’s prominent rings, making them a laboratory for studying spoke phenomena.” “Despite years of excellent observations by the Cassini mission, the precise beginning and duration of the spoke season is still unpredictable, rather like predicting the first storm during hurricane season,” Dr. With Cassini’s mission completed in 2017, and Voyager spacecraft long gone, Hubble is continuing the work of long-term monitoring of changes on Saturn and the other outer planets. Saturn’s last equinox occurred in 2009, while NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was orbiting the gas giant for close-up reconnaissance. Amy Simon, a senior planetary scientist at NASA and head of the Opal program. “Thanks to Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, which is building an archive of data on the outer solar system planets, we will have longer dedicated time to study Saturn’s spokes this season than ever before,” said Dr. The transient, mysterious features can appear dark or light depending on the illumination and viewing angles. The ring spokes were first observed by NASA’s Voyager mission in the early 1980s. ![]() ![]() On Earth, when those charged particles hit the atmosphere this is visible in the northern hemisphere as the aurora borealis.Īstronomers think that the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles can become charged as well, which temporarily levitates those particles above the rest of the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings. Planetary magnetic fields interact with the solar wind, creating an electrically charged environment. The suspected culprit for the spokes is the planet’s variable magnetic field. ![]() When the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest latitude in the northern or southern hemisphere of a planet.Īs the autumnal equinox of Saturn’s northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, draws near, the spokes are expected to become increasingly prominent and observable. The spokes disappear when it is near summer or winter solstice on Saturn. Like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis and therefore has four seasons, though because of Saturn’s much larger orbit, each season lasts approximately seven Earth years.Įquinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Alyssa Pagan, STScI. This Hubble image heralds the start of Saturn’s ‘spoke season’ with the appearance of two smudgy spokes in the B ring, on the left in the image. ![]()
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