The Lightning Tonight Is Unreal

Tampere // Juuso Hämäläinen

37,000 Feet | By Santiago Borja

Skeikampen

by: Sondre Eriksen

A photo of Saturn. Took by Cassini with COISS on May 08, 2005 at 19:13:54. Detail page on OPUS database.

Hubble Reveals The Beauty And Mystery Of Saturn’s Rings

“Right now, in Earth’s skies, Saturn appears at its biggest and brightest. Just look to the southeastern skies (from the northern hemisphere), slightly east of bright Jupiter. With Earth between the Sun and Saturn, it’s poised for spectacular viewing. But the true star of Saturn is its main rings, now tilted for excellent views.”

I wish we had a dedicated mission, constantly, for each of the outer planets. There’s so much out there to explore and learn about, and there’s no view like the view from actually being there. But in the absence of that, the Hubble Space Telescope is a very, very pleasing consolation prize, capable of imaging these worlds every year at incredible resolution, even from over a billion kilometers away.

Take a look at these views of Saturn, and marvel at the incredible ring system. If you want to see it for yourself, now’s the perfect time!

Bruno Hans Bürgel - Aus Fernen Welten, 1920.

On its last day, the Rosetta space probe captured this view of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from an altitude of about 16 kilometers above the surface during the spacecraft’s final descent on September 30, 2016.

(ESA)

Glenorchy, New Zealand // Chrystal Hutchinson

Wind River Mountain Range // Jaxson Pohlman

Aurorae on Jupiter by NASA, ESA, Hubble