{"id":630227,"date":"2026-10-14T09:24:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/630227\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:24:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:24:28","slug":"psychedelic-saturn-whats-going-on-with-these-pop-art-images-of-the-ringed-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/630227\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychedelic Saturn! What&#8217;s going on with these pop art images of the ringed planet?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You might be forgiven for thinking that these images of Saturn are the creation of Andy Warhol or any of his pop art contemporaries.<\/p>\n<p>They are, in fact, real images of the planet captured by the Hubble Space Telescope using a variety of different <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/advice\/telescope-filters-beginners-guide\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">filters<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/saturn-filters-colourful-annotated.jpg\" alt=\"Views of Saturn in different wavelengths, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope observation program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy). Science: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)\" class=\"wp-image-165607\"\/>Views of Saturn in different wavelengths, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope observation program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy). Science: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)<\/p>\n<p>These colourful Saturn images show real data captured by Hubble with filters, which is then mapped onto the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/advice\/what-rgb-filters-used-for\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RGB (red, green, blue)<\/a> colours visible to the human eye.<\/p>\n<p>By observing celestial objects using filters, astronomers can hone in on different wavelengths of light and see features that would normally be invisible.<\/p>\n<p>Each filter combination reveals differences in Saturn&#8217;s cloud altitude or composition.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/saturn-filters-colourful.jpg\" alt=\"Views of Saturn in different wavelengths, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope observation program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy). Science: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)\" class=\"wp-image-165606\"\/>Science: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)<br \/>\nHubble is seeing Saturn&#8217;s rings disappear<\/p>\n<p>The images were captured as part of the Hubble Space Telescope observation program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy).<\/p>\n<p>This programme observes the outer planets of our Solar System \u2013 Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune \u2013 to track how their atmospheres change over time.<\/p>\n<p>OPAL began observing Saturn in 2018, just after the end of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/space-missions\/cassini-mission\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NASA Cassini mission<\/a> at the ringed planet system.<\/p>\n<p>This means it has been following Saturn for about one quarter of the planet&#8217;s year (it takes over 29 years to orbit the Sun).<\/p>\n<p>As a result, Hubble gets to see how the orientation of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/space-science\/a-guide-to-the-rings-of-saturn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Saturn&#8217;s ring system<\/a> changes over time, relative to Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Every 15 years or so, Saturn undergoes a &#8216;ring plane crossing&#8217;, when its rings are edge-on from our perspective, making them seem to disappear.<\/p>\n<p>That last occurred in 2025, at which point Saturn&#8217;s rings were incredibly difficult to see from Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You might be forgiven for thinking that these images of Saturn are the creation of Andy Warhol or&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-630227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}