What it’s: Saturn, the seventh planet from the solar, as seen by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft
When it was taken: Aug. 11, 1981
The place it’s: 886 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) from the solar — 9.5 instances the Earth-sun distance
Why it is so particular: Taken 42 years in the past this month, this false-color picture from NASA’s Voyager 2 probe reveals the convective clouds and storms in Saturn’s northern hemisphere. Seen on the proper facet of the picture are the moons Dione and Enceladus, the latter of which latest observations from the James Webb Area Telescope present is spraying large plumes of watery vapor far into area.
The picture was taken 9 million miles (15 million km) from Earth, simply as Voyager 2 approached the ringed planet, utilizing the spacecraft’s VG ISS Slender Angle instrument. The false-color picture was assembled from ultraviolet, violet and inexperienced pictures with filters used to make them seen to the human eye. In case you look beneath the yellow band of clouds (which, in actuality, could be white), you will see a inexperienced spot (which is definitely brown) that represents a storm. Voyager 2 measured winds blowing at Saturn’s equator at a whopping 1,100 mph (1,770 km/h).
Voyager 2 wasn’t the primary probe to picture Saturn. That distinction goes to Pioneer 11, one among NASA’s first photo voltaic system probes, which launched in 1973 on a mission to review Jupiter, Saturn and the asteroid belt as a pathfinder for the Voyager missions.
Nor was Voyager 2 the primary of the 2 Voyager probes to {photograph} the ringed planet. Its twin, Voyager 1, reached Saturn in November 1980, whereas Voyager 2 visited 9 months later, making its closest strategy on Aug. 26, 1981. Nevertheless, as a result of Voyager 2 had extra delicate cameras, it was in a position to detect much more options in Saturn’s turbulent environment, based on NASA.
see it within the evening sky: Now’s the right time to see Saturn, however to get any sense of its rings, you will want a good telescope. The ringed planet is presently at its largest, brightest and finest for the yr, having reached opposition (when Earth is between it and the solar) on Aug. 27. Saturn is presently within the constellation Aquarius and rising within the east at nightfall.