The Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed that a new 'spoke season' is kicking off at Saturn.
This tilt is what gives Earth its seasons. As our planet orbits the Sun, the Northern and Southern hemispheres receive more or less sunlight, depending on whether they are tilted towards or away from the Sun.
The point at which the tilt is the deepest is the solstice, occurring in summer and winter. The time of lowest tilt with respect to the Sun is known as the equinox, occurring in spring and autumn. Saturn has this too, but it also has rings, and they tilt, too. Saturn's rings tilt towards the Sun at the solstices, and at the equinoxes, the rings are pretty much edge-on.
Decades of observations show that the spokes typically start to appear around four years before the equinox. The next equinox on Saturn is due to take place in 2025, so the start of"spoke season" was estimated to occur sometime in 2021. As for what causes them, scientists have some ideas. Data from several missions, including Voyager, suggest that the spokes themselves consist of dust particles from the rings separating from the icy chunks in the rings and levitating separately. And it could beAs the solar wind interacts with Saturn's magnetic field, it creates an electrically charged environment, a bit like a giant.
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