March 23, 2025: While Saturn is buried in bright morning twilight, Earth passes through the ring plane. When the planet emerges from twilight, we see the rings from a southern view.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:48 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 7:07 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
While Saturn is buried in bright morning twilight, Earth passes through the planet’s ring plane. If we could see it, the rings would nearly disappear, like looking at the edge of a plate.
Saturn’s year is nearly 30 earth-years long. With a tilt of 26.7°, the sun shines most directly at the Saturnian hemispheres in alternating periods of nearly 15 years. On Earth, we call this the annual cycle of the seasons, though on Saturn one season is over seven years long.
Around the time of the summer solstice, when Saturn is high enough to clearly view through a telescope, the rings are only slightly tilted to reveal their southern side. The icy rings present their full view in seven years, when the sun shines on the planet’s most southerly regions.
Today, Saturn’s rings are edge on, though the planet is not visible from twilight’s bright light.
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