NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured new images of Saturn and the start of its spoke season. In the image above, we can see two smudgy spokes in the B ring, on the left in the image, but the shape and shading of these can vary. The spokes can appear light or dark, depending on the viewing angle, and sometimes resemble blobs rather than classic radial spoke shapes.
What causes Saturn’s ring spokes? Researchers theorize that the planet’s variable magnetic field could be culprit since it interacts with the solar wind, resulting in an electrically charged environment. This means that the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles can become charged as well, which temporarily levitates them above the rest of the larger icy boulders in the rings, causing spokes to appear.
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Thanks to Hubble’s OPAL program, which is building an archive of data on the outer solar system planets, we will have longer dedicated time to study Saturn’s spokes this season than ever before. Despite years of excellent observations by the Cassini mission, the precise beginning and duration of the spoke season is still unpredictable, rather like predicting the first storm during hurricane season,” said Amy Simon, NASA senior planetary scientist.
