File:Hubble Sees Summertime on Saturn (50210386317).jpg

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Description	This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was taken on 4 July, 2020, when the opulent giant world was 1350 million kilometres from Earth. This new Saturn image was taken during summer in the planet's northern hemisphere. Hubble found a number of small atmospheric storms. These are transient features that appear to come and go with each yearly Hubble observation. The banding in the northern hemisphere remains pronounced as seen in Hubble's 2019 observations, with several bands slightly changing color from year to year. The ringed planet's atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrocarbons that give it a yellowish-brown color. Hubble photographed a slight reddish haze over the northern hemisphere in this color composite. This may be due to heating from increased sunlight, which could either change the atmospheric circulation or perhaps remove ices from aerosols in the atmosphere. Another theory is that the increased sunlight in the summer months is changing the amounts of photochemical haze produced. Two of Saturn's icy moons are also clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team
Date	14 July 2020, 14:51
Source	Hubble Sees Summertime on Saturn
Author	Hubble ESA

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This image was originally posted to Flickr by Hubble Space Telescope / ESA at https://flickr.com/photos/51268976@N08/50210386317. It was reviewed on 7 December 2020 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

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Author	Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach
Source	ESA/Hubble
Credit/Provider	NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team
Short title	Hubble Sees Summertime on Saturn
Image title	This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was taken on 4 July, 2020, when the opulent giant world was 1350 million kilometres from Earth. This new Saturn image was taken during summer in the planet's northern hemisphere. Hubble found a number of small atmospheric storms. These are transient features that appear to come and go with each yearly Hubble observation. The banding in the northern hemisphere remains pronounced as seen in Hubble's 2019 observations, with several bands slightly changing color from year to year. The ringed planet's atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrocarbons that give it a yellowish-brown color. Hubble photographed a slight reddish haze over the northern hemisphere in this color composite. This may be due to heating from increased sunlight, which could either change the atmospheric circulation or perhaps remove ices from aerosols in the atmosphere. Another theory is that the increased sunlight in the summer months is changing the amounts of photochemical haze produced. Two of Saturn's icy moons are also clearly visible in this exposure: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at bottom. Link NASA press release
Usage terms	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Date and time of data generation	19:00, 23 July 2020
JPEG file comment	Saturn is truly the lord of the rings in this latest snapshot from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, taken on July 4, 2020, when the opulent giant world was 839 million miles from Earth. This new Saturn image was taken during summer in the planet’s northern hemisphere. Hubble found a number of small atmospheric storms. These are transient features that appear to come and go with each yearly Hubble observation. The banding in the northern hemisphere remains pronounced from Hubble’s 2019 observations, with several bands slightly changing color from year to year. The ringed planet’s atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium with traces of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrocarbons that give it a yellowish-brown color. Hubble photographed a slight reddish haze over the northern hemisphere in this color composite. This may be due to heating from increased sunlight, which could either change the atmospheric circulation, or perhaps remove ices from aerosols in the atmosphere. Another theory is that the increased sunlight in the summer months is changing the amounts of photochemical haze produced. “It’s amazing that even over a few years, we’re seeing seasonal changes on Saturn,” said lead investigator Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Conversely, the just now visible south pole has a blue hue, reflecting changes in Saturn’s winter hemisphere. Hubble’s sharp view resolves the finely etched concentric ring structure. The rings are mostly made of pieces of ice, with sizes ranging from tiny grains to giant boulders. Just how and when the rings formed remains one of our solar system’s biggest mysteries. Conventional wisdom is that they are as old as the planet, over 4 billion years. But because the rings are so bright – like freshly fallen snow – a competing theory is that they may have formed during the age of the dinosaurs. However, many astronomers agree that there is no satisfactory theory that explains how rings could have formed within just the past few hundred million years. This image is taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. OPAL is helping scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of our solar system’s gas giant planets. In Saturn’s case, astronomers continue tracking shifting weather patterns and storms. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.
Software used	Adobe Photoshop 21.2 (Macintosh)
File change date and time	14:51, 14 July 2020
Date and time of digitizing	12:22, 7 July 2020
Date metadata was last modified	11:19, 14 July 2020
Unique ID of original document	xmp.did:b0681137-f99a-4391-8cb6-b3e0e4a29a0a
Keywords	Saturn
Contact information	outreach@stsci.edu http://www.spacetelescope.org Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 Garching bei München, None, D-85748 Germany 410-338-4444
IIM version	4

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