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NASA mission "Artemis II": first manned journey to the moon in over 50 years
by Kim Muntinga
Two faces of Saturn
4.4.2026
Translation: machine translated
In the infrared and visually, the view of the ringed planet reveals clear differences, as newly published images from NASA show.
The two space telescopes James Webb (JWST) and Hubble (HST) are repeatedly pointed at the planets of the solar system when they are favourably positioned in the sky for observation. These two images of the ringed planet were taken back in 2024, but were only presented by NASA in March 2026. The image on the left was taken with the JWST on 29 November 2024 in infrared; the one on the right with Hubble in visual on 22 August. The observations are part of the OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) programme, which has been using the Hubble Space Telescope for more than 30 years to photograph Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune at least once a year. For some years now, the JWST has also been used for this purpose.
In the infrared image of Saturn, at a wavelength range between 1.64 and 4.7 micrometres, the haze layers in the atmosphere are clearly visible and the rings, which consist mainly of water ice, also shine brightly. They reflect the sun's heat radiation very well, making them appear brighter than the planet itself. In 2024, Saturn was close to its equinox, which it passes through every 15 years. This is why the rings appear only slightly open in both images. Several of Saturn's moons can also be seen in the JWST image; the moon Dione, which is around 1100 kilometres in size, is particularly striking on the left below the rings. Saturn is orbited by at least 285 moons and thus holds the record in the solar system. As recently as March 2026, eleven more new Saturn satellites were reported, but they are much smaller than Dione.
The Hubble image on the right was taken in the visual range using four narrow-band filters that cover Saturn in the range between 395 and 631 nanometres from blue to red light. The following applies: 1 nanometre = 10-3 micrometres = 10-9 metres. The filtering clearly reveals structures in the atmosphere, including storms and the high-contrast banding caused by the ringed planet's rapid rotation of just over ten hours. Saturn appears much less contrasty when viewed with the naked eye. The distinctive bands are only visible on close inspection and under very good observation conditions; otherwise the planet appears almost uniform in a yellowish-brown colour.
Some of Saturn's small moons can also be seen in the Hubble image; Mimas is best seen as a white dot to the left below the rings and to the left of the centre of the planet's disc. It even casts a tiny dark shadow on the cloud cover. As it only has a diameter of around 400 kilometres, it is tiny compared to Saturn, which is ten times the diameter of the Earth (around 120,000 kilometres).
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Header image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael Wong (UC Berkeley); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
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