It was the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1655 who first proposed that they were individualized flat rings. Galileo was the first to see them back in 1610, though with his weaker telescope it looked more like they were attached. The two brightest can be depicted from backyard telescopes. These rings are enormous in extent and bright. The size of the particles in the rings ranges from dust-sized icy bits to chunks the size of a house. They comprise mostly ice and rocks, the crushed debris of countless celestial bodies that have entered and been destroyed on entry to Saturn’s orbit due to immense pressure from the planet’s huge gravitational force. These rings are ice types unlike the dust ones of Jupiter. There are no such problems with binoculars, and you certainly don’t require a tripod to keep everything balanced. With a telescope, you need to mount it in position and make sure that everything is in perfect balance. What’s more, you have to ensure that the sensitive lens, mirrors, and internal workings remain in good condition.īinoculars are extremely mobile. If you have ever used a telescope for astronomy before, you know how difficult it can be to maneuver and point it to get in the proper position to observe the target sky object (unless it’s the Moon). You may get a peak at Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, when its magnitude is at its max of +8.10 - the binocular limit is roughly +9.īinoculars are easy to use. With a good set of binoculars you can expect to Saturn, which has a mean apparent magnitude of +0.46. Telescopes don’t have to cost a fortune, but the best ones – and certainly those which would give you the best chance of seeing Saturn’s rings from home or even out in the country – don’t come cheap. The best thing about using binoculars is, of course, that they are inexpensive. How to see Saturn? One of the natural questions people who are interested ask are – “Can I see Saturn with binoculars?” You might think this tricky, given how far away Saturn is (roughly 843.33 million miles, if you’re curious). On NASA’s Night Sky Network you’ll find the many clubs in the US where you can investigate this. You might like to join night sky parties and make it a social event. Hence when in opposition next (July 20), the rings should be observable.Įarthlings cannot see Saturn’s rings when the rings are edge-on as viewed from the Earth NASA The next time should be in 2025, the previous 2010. “We want to know: Where did we come from? What happened after the big bang to make galaxies and stars and black holes? We have predictions and guesses, but astronomy is an observational science, full of surprises.Because Saturn takes much longer to travel around the Sun, seeing the rings edge-on from Earth happens only every 15 years, approximately. Scientific observations, proposed years ago, are being made as we speak,” Mather said. “What comes next? All the tools are working, better than we hoped and promised. The first images were anticipated by Mather for 25 years. “We’ll look at our own solar system with new infrared eyes, looking for chemical traces of our history, and tracking down mysteries like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, composition of the ocean under the ice of Europa, and the atmosphere of Saturn’s giant moon Titan,” said John Mather, Webb senior project scientist at NASA Goddard, in a statement. Interactive: The search for life on Mars and ocean worlds in our solar system This is especially exciting because it means that Webb may also be able to observe plumes of material releasing into space from ocean worlds in our solar system, like Europa or Saturn’s moon Enceladus. These robots could search for life in our solar system's ocean worlds Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech JPL-Caltech/NASA In the Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers (SWIM) concept, illustrated here, dozens of small robots would descend through the icy shell of a distant moon via a cryobot to the ocean below.
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