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Quadruple Saturn Moon Transit Snapped by Hubble
On February 24, 2009, the Hubble Space Telescope took a photo of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. In this view, the giant orange moon Titan casts a large shadow onto Saturn's north polar hood. Below Titan, near the ring plane and to the left is the...
Saturn's comparatively paper-thin rings are tilted edge on to Earth every 15 years. Because the orbits of Saturn's major satellites are in the ring plane, too, this alignment gives astronomers a rare opportunity to capture a truly spectacular parade of celestial bodies crossing the face of Saturn. Leading the parade is Saturn's giant moon Titan - larger than the planet Mercury. The frigid moon's thick nitrogen atmosphere is tinted orange with the smoggy byproducts of sunlight interacting with methane and nitrogen. Several of the much smaller icy moons that are closer in to the planet line up along the upper edge of the rings. Hubble's exquisite sharpness also reveals Saturn's banded cloud structure.
Related Images & Videos
Quadruple Saturn Moon Transit Snapped By Hubble
On February 24, 2009, the Hubble Space Telescope took a photo of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. In this view, the giant orange moon Titan casts a large shadow onto Saturn's north polar hood. Below Titan, near the ring plane and to the left is the...
HST Image of Saturn Moon Transits
This sequence of images captures the parade of several of Saturn's moons transiting the face of the gas giant planet. This is a rare event because the rings are tilted edge on to Earth every 15 years. The top frame captures the giant moon Titan and its shadow near Saturn's...
Closeup of Quadruple Saturn Moon Transit
This close-up view of Saturn's disk captures the transit of several moons across the face of the gas giant planet. The giant orange moon Titan – larger than the planet Mercury – can be seen at upper right. The white icy moons that are much closer to Saturn, hence much closer to...
Saturn's Rings Viewed from Earth
As Saturn travels around its orbit, Hubble sees a different view of the tilted rings from a position near Earth. The rings nearly disappear twice during Saturn's approximately 30-year orbit, because we see them edge on and they are extremely thin relative to their diameter.
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Last Updated
Mar 20, 2025
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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