images

Saturn and satellites seen by Hubble Space Telescope

by

Nasa/ESA/Novapix

Reference

a-sat02-00008

Date

2007-03-21

Image of Saturn taken with the Hubble Space Telescope on Aug. 6, 1995. This movie still shows Titan chasing its shadow across Saturn's disk. It reveals the planet's rings tipped nearly edge-on toward the Earth. This edge-on alignment happens once every 15 years. The last time this alignment occurred was in 1995 and 1996. This true-color image of Saturn shows the bands of clouds that make up the planet's atmosphere. This banded structure is similar to Jupiter's. A thick haze covers the clouds. The moon Tethys is just beneath Saturn's rings on the left. The "thumbnail" images on the far left are frames from the movie that show the moons transiting the planet.