Goodbye, Saturn’s Rings….for now.
by adminOn August 11th, Saturn’s rings disappeared from Earth’s view. This is because from our perspective the rings appear to ‘wobble’ over the period of years; showing us their tops and bottoms from differing angles.
But part of that ‘wobble’ is that every 15 years or so the rings are edge-on the earth and disappear from view as the Earth’s orbit brings us through the plane of the Rings. The last such planar travel happened in the mid-90’s
The rings will soon reappear, and the viewing angle will increase over the next 7-8 years giving us a maximum angle of about 27 degrees. Then the angle will start to decrease once more. If you start viewing now, you can catch all of these nifty ring angles over the next few years! (Your images probably won’t be as good…these are Hubble shots)
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Leave a Reply