The Giants of Summer
29.07.2020

As Comet NEOWISE sweeps through northern summer skies, Jupiter and Saturn are shining brightly, near opposition. With Jupiter opposite the Sun on July 14 and Saturn on July 21, the giant planets are still near their closest to planet Earth in 2020.

Saturn and Jupiter over Italian Peaks
20.10.2020

Saturn and Jupiter are getting closer. Every night that you go out and check for the next two months, these two bright planets will be even closer together on the sky. Finally, in mid-December...

A Lunar Corona with Jupiter and Saturn
19.01.2021

Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful? The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently.

APOD: 2020 August 13 Б Jupiter and Saturn Rising Beyond Alien Throne Rock
13.08.2020

Whatбplanets are those behind that unusualбrock spire? Saturn (lower left) and Jupiter.б This month, after sunset, the bright planetary duo are quite prominent toward the southeast.б Now your view of our Solar...

Great Conjunction over Sicilian Lighthouse
8.12.2020

DonБt miss the coming great conjunction. In just under two weeks, the two largest planets in our Solar System will angularly pass so close together in Earth's sky that the Moon would easily be able to cover them both simultaneously. This pending planetary passage -- on December 21 -- will be the closest since 1623.

Saturn and Jupiter in Summer 2020
12.12.2020

During this northern summer Saturn and Jupiter were both near opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. Their paired retrograde motion, seen about every 20 years, is followed from 19 June through 28 August in this panoramic composite as they wander together between the stars in western Capricornus and eastern Sagittarius.

Jupiter and Saturn Great Conjunction: The Movie
30.12.2020

Yes, but have you seen a movie of Jupiter and Saturn's Great Conjunction? The featured time-lapse video was composed from a series of images taken from Thailand and shows the two giant planets as they angularly passed about a tenth of a degree from each other.

Saturn in Infrared from Cassini
24.07.2022

Many details of Saturn appear clearly in infrared light. Bands of clouds show great structure, including long stretching storms. Also quite striking in infrared is the unusual hexagonal cloud pattern surrounding Saturn's North Pole. Each side of the dark hexagon spans roughly the width of our Earth.

Cassini Looks Out from Saturn
23.12.2022

This is what Saturn looks like from inside the rings. In 2017, for the first time, NASA directed the Cassini spacecraft to swoop between Saturn and its rings. During the dive, the robotic spacecraft took hundreds of images showing unprecedented detail for structures in Saturn's atmosphere.

Rings and Seasons of Saturn
19.09.2021

On Saturn, the rings tell you the season. On Earth, Wednesday marks an equinox, the time when the Earth's equator tilts directly toward the Sun. Since Saturn's grand rings orbit along...