Saturn is tilted on its axis and, therefore, has four seasons, although because of Saturn’s much larger orbit, each season lasts about seven Earth years.
New images of Saturn, taken from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, herald the beginning of the planet’s “radial bar season” during the equinox, when mysterious features appear across its rings. Planetary scientists did not explain the reason for this phenomenon.
The equinox occurs when the rings tilt toward the edge of the sun. The radial formations that penetrate the rings for thousands of kilometers disappear when the planet approaches the summer or winter solstice, when the sun appears to reach its highest or lowest latitude in the northern or southern half of the planet.
As the autumnal equinox approaches in Saturn’s northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, the “radial bars” phenomenon is expected to become increasingly noticeable. The suspected culprit is the planet’s changing magnetic field.
