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The sun passes south to north through the ring plane when Saturn's heliocentric longitude is 173.6 degrees (e.g. 11 August 2009), about the time Saturn crosses from Leo to Virgo. 15.7 years later Saturn's longitude reaches 353.6 degrees and the sun passes to the south side of the ring plane.
Saturn's orbit plane is inclined 2.485 degrees relative to Earth's, and Jupiter's is inclined 1.303 degrees. The ascending nodes of both planets are similar (100.6 degrees for Jupiter and 113.7 degrees for Saturn), meaning if Saturn is above or below Earth's orbital plane Jupiter usually is too. Because these nodes align so well it would be ...
A conjunction of the Moon and Mars took place on 24 December 2007, very close to the time of the full Moon and at the time when Mars was at opposition to the Sun. Mars and the full Moon appeared close together in the sky worldwide, with an occultation of Mars occurring for observers in some far northern locations. [13]
For example, during the opposition of 17 December 2002, Saturn appeared at its brightest due to the favorable orientation of its rings relative to the Earth, [178] even though Saturn was closer to the Earth and Sun in late 2003. [178] From time to time, Saturn is occulted by the Moon (that is, the Moon covers up Saturn in the sky). As with all ...
It may also refer to the time it takes a satellite orbiting a planet or moon to complete one orbit. For celestial objects in general, the orbital period is determined by a 360° revolution of one body around its primary, e.g. Earth around the Sun. Periods in astronomy are expressed in units of time, usually hours, days, or years.
Earth may have had a ring made up of a broken asteroid over 400 million years ago, a study finds. The Saturn-like feature could explain a climate shift at the time.
So maybe it’s best we leave Saturn exploration to uncrewed probes after all. In 2017, NASA’s Cassini probe sent us our closest view of Saturn to date. If you wanted to take a closer look at ...
For Earth this means a period of just under 12 hours at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,544.2 miles) if the orbit is circular. [16] Molniya orbit: A semi-synchronous variation of a Tundra orbit. For Earth this means an orbital period of just under 12 hours. Such a satellite spends most of its time over two designated areas of the ...