Saturn Archives

An average of the continuum-removed spectra of the leading and trailing hemispheres of Mimas and Tethys and the leading hemispheres of Dione and Rhea, in black, and of the trailing hemispheres of Dione and Rhea, in red. The lines at the bottom show measured wavelengths of CO2 in different states, including in pure crystalline form and trapped as clathrate in crystalline water ice (Oancea et al. 2012), trapped in amorphous ice (Sandford & Allamandola 1990; G´alvez et al. 2008) and physisorbed onto minerals (Hibbitts & Szanyi 2007), which can lead to a wide range of wavelengths. The shorter wavelength 4.2487 µm line associated with the darker hemispheres of Dione and Rhea appears to have no corresponding absorption in the 2.7 µm region. -- astro-ph.EP

Dione, Enceladus, Hyperion, Iapetus, Icy Worlds, Mimas, Phoebe, Rhea, Saturn, Status Report, Tethys

A JWST Study Of CO2 On The Satellites Of Saturn

by Keith CowingOctober 6, 2025October 6, 2025

Solid state CO2 has been detected throughout the outer solar system, even at temperatures where crystalline CO2 is unstable, requiring that the CO2 be trapped in a separate host material.

The inside of Enceladus larger image -- ESA

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Enceladus, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Saturn, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Cassini Proves The Existence Of Complex Chemistry Within Enceladus’ Ocean

by Keith CowingOctober 1, 2025October 1, 2025

Scientists digging through data collected by the Cassini spacecraft have found new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. This is a clear sign that complex chemical reactions are […]

The rings of Saturn and Uranus as imaged by JWST NIRCam. These images provide an empirical example in which the flux of the ring system is comparable to, or even exceeds, that of the planet when observed with NIRCam. The image of Saturn was created using data from JWST GTO 1247.a The image of Uranus was created using data from JWST DD 2739.b -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, Proxima Centauri, Saturn, tau Ceti, Uranus

On the Detection Of Exorings in Reflected Light With JWST NIRCam

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2025September 19, 2025

When directly imaging a cold giant exoplanet hosting a ring system, the reflected light from the rings can outshine the planet’s thermal emission and reflected-light in the near-infrared.

An artist’s impression of plumes erupting onto the surface of Enceladus. Its fellow moon Titan is seen in the sky, and the distant Sun beyond. Credit ESA/Science Office. Larger image

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Enceladus, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, Saturn

Study Questions Oceanic Origin Of Organics In Enceladus’s Plumes

by Keith CowingSeptember 9, 2025September 9, 2025

Organic molecules detected in the watery plumes that spew out from cracks in the surface of Enceladus could be formed through exposure to radiation on Saturn’s icy moon, rather than […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Saturn, Video, Audio, Webcasts, Podcasts, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Video: A Preview Of Future Gas Giant Exploration

by Keith CowingAugust 18, 2025August 18, 2025

Imagine what a future Astrobiology droid might see as it flies through clouds on Jupiter or Saturn looking for biosignatures.

Binary collision-induced H2–He absorption coefficient, α, normalized by the hydrogen and helium gas densities, as function of frequency in the fundamental band, at 296 K. The parato-ortho distribution, is representative of equilibrium H2, just as in Fig. 2. Our model (“this work”), is compared with the model of Abel et al.17 for T = 300K, and with the laboratory measurements of Vitali et al. 18 and Brodbeck et al.19 , both of which were made near 296 K. We note that neither our model nor that of Abel et al. considered the discrete, intercollisional interference dips present in the laboratory spectra. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Ice Giant, Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Status Report, Uranus

Improved H2-He and H2-H2 Collision-Induced Absorption Models and Application to Outer-Planet Atmospheres

by Keith CowingJune 15, 2025June 13, 2025

Using state-of-the-art ab initio interaction-induced dipole and potential-energy surfaces for hydrogen-helium (H2-He) pairs, we compute the rototranslational collision-induced absorption coefficient at 40-400 K for frequencies covering 0-4000 cm-1.

Wolf 359 images from NIRCam (blue) and MIRI (red) before and after PSF subtraction. PSF subtraction was performed in order to improve the sensitivity to finding faint astrophysical sources near the star. The white circle represents an angular separation of 15 AU for the Wolf 359 system. The dark spots in the background of the PSF subtracted frames are due to positive sources in the reference star frames; this issue is expected to be mitigated in future analysis when additional reference stars are available. In the MIRI F2100W frames, an image artifact is present approximately 75 pixels above the center of the star. Future proper motion followup observations are needed to identify if uncataloged point sources are co-moving companions. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Saturn, Status Report

JWST MIRI Imaging Can Directly Detect Exoplanets Of The Same Temperature, Mass, Age, And Orbital Separation As Saturn And Jupiter

by Keith CowingMay 23, 2025May 23, 2025

NIRCam and MIRI coronagraphy have successfully demonstrated the ability to directly image young sub-Jupiter mass and mature gas-giant exoplanets.

Water line area maps expressed in units of µmˆ% of continuum. The four observation time windows are July 2011 at 67.09 µm, February 2012 at 66.44 and 67.09 µm, July-August 2012 at 66.44 and 67.09 µm, and January-February 2013 at 66.44 and 67.09 µm. Saturn’s 1-bar level is represented by the black ellipse, with the north pole facing upwards. A selection of iso-latitudes are plotted with grey lines. The rotation axis corresponds to the thin dashed black line. The beam spatial extent is illustrated by the circle in a dashed blue line. The black dots correspond to the central position of the spatial pixels. The position and extension of the beacon (see Table 3) at mid-observation time is represented with the thick dashed black lines. A cubic interpolation was applied to the data. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Enceladus, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Saturn, Status Report

Temporal Evolution Of Water Abundance In Saturn’s Hot Vortex Of 2011-2013

by Keith CowingMay 8, 2025May 8, 2025

Water vapour is delivered to Saturn’s stratosphere by Enceladus’ plumes and subsequent diffusion in the planet system. It is expected to condense into a haze in the middle stratosphere.

Huygens landing - still from animation: ESA-C. Carreau/Schröder, Karkoschka et al. (2012)

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Cryobiology, Icy Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Saturn, Titan, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

The Top 10 Huygens Discoveries At Titan

by Keith CowingApril 8, 2025

On 14 January 2005, at 13:34 CET (12:34 UTC), ESA’s Huygens probe entered the history books by descending to the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Status Report, Titan, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Impacts Into Titan’s Methane-clathrate Crust As A Source Of Atmospheric Methane

by Keith CowingMarch 27, 2025March 27, 2025

Titan is the only icy satellite in the solar system with a dense atmosphere. This atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen with a few percent methane, which supports an active, […]