NASA images show how Saturn’s rings change as it moves around the Sun

Saturn’s equator is tilted 27 degrees with respect to its orbit, similar to Earth’s tilt of 23 degrees. One hemisphere of Saturn tilts toward the Sun before the other as it travels through its orbit. The seasons are generated by this cyclical change in the same way as the Earth’s seasons are generated by the tilt of our planet’s changing axis.

The complex variations in color and brightness of the rings are being studied by researchers through this gallery of images. They are interested in learning more about the chemical composition, formation and potential lifetime of the rings. Saturn’s rings are incredibly thin, only about 30 feet thick.

The boulder- and dusty-sized chunks of water ice that make up the rings slowly crash into each other as they circle Saturn. Saturn’s gravitational field continually displaces these ice chunks, keeping them apart and preventing them from combining to form the Moon. The rings have a distinct appearance as they are seen here because organic matter was mixed with water ice.

Because of its incredibly fast rotation, Saturn, with a diameter of about 120,000 km, is flattened near its poles. A day on Saturn is only ten hours long. The horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet are caused by strong winds.

The subtle color change in clouds is caused by haze in the high atmosphere, which forms when the Sun’s UV light interacts with methane gas. The visible clouds and gases eventually merge with the hotter and denser gases in the atmosphere, leaving no stable surface for oncoming spacecraft.