Every time Earth catches up and passes Saturn, putting the two planets at their closest – at opposition – as they circle the Sun, astronomers use the Hubble Space Telescope to check in on the ringed gas giant. This year, on 4 July, Hubble captured a spectacular view of Saturn and its rings as the planet’s northern hemisphere was being warmed by the summertime Sun. Atmospheric banding in the northern hemisphere remains pronounced, as it was in 2019, with several bands changing colour from year to year. The planet’s atmosphere, made up mostly of hydrogen and helium, along with trace amount of ammonia, methane, water vapour and hydrocarbons, has a mostly yellowish-brown hue with a reddish haze at northern latitudes. The haze may be the result of solar heating or changes in the amounts of photochemical haze.
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The long goodbye of a dying star
A dying star’s final moments are captured in this image of planetary nebula NGC 6565 in Sagittarius from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The death throes of this star may only last mere moments on a cosmological timescale, but this star’s demise is still quite lengthy by our standards, lasting tens of thousands of years.
See the International Space Station pass overhead from the UK tonight
Urban dwellers may resign themselves to spotting the Moon, planets and the brightest stars with the unaided eye on a clear night, but every so often a bright satellite will catch your attention as it glides silently across the sky. The brightest is the 400-tonne International Space Station (ISS) whose orbit carries it directly overhead as seen from the British Isles and parts of Western Europe tonight.