New photos from the Space Telescope show Saturn’s rings covered in mysterious spots

The rings of Saturn are one of the most magnificent sights in our solar system. But every 15 years, something strange happens to them, a phenomenon that has baffled scientists since its discovery four decades ago.

New images from the Hubble Space Telescope have again revealed mysterious spots on Saturn’s rings, signaling that the planet’s “monsoon season” is in full swing.

These dark and light markings are reminiscent of the spokes on a bicycle.

What exactly causes these spots is unknown, but experts hope that the latest observations from Hubble will provide an opportunity to study the phenomenon in more detail.

Spots appear only in the years preceding and following the equinoxes on the sixth planet from the Sun.

Saturn’s northern hemisphere autumnal equinox occurs on May 6, 2025, but the marks tend to start appearing four years earlier, so Hubble can already see them. NASA wants to know why they only appear seasonally and what makes them disappear and reappear at certain times of Saturn’s year. Since Saturn is much farther from the sun than we are, its year is also longer. Saturn takes 29 years to orbit the sun, and how each of its seasons lasts about seven years.

Saturn’s last equinox occurred in 2009, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was still orbiting the planet as part of a close-up survey.

But the Cassini mission ended in 2017, so Hubble continues to monitor any changes on Saturn and other outer planets.

The ring spokes were first noticed by two NASA Voyager probes that flew past Saturn in 1980 and 1981. Further analysis revealed even more oddities – firstly, they are not always present, but also that they usually appear dark on top and bright below.

Cassini arrived in 2004 and discovered relatively quickly that the spokes were not caused by gravitational interactions with Saturn, its moons, or the tiny moons that make up the planet’s rings. A year later, the spacecraft confirmed that the spokes were likely connected to Saturn’s magnetic field, giving rise to many theories about the process.

One is that charged dust particles suspended above and below the rings interact with the planet’s magnetic field, causing them to separate from the ice blocks inside the rings and levitate separately.

It is also possible that the solar wind is interacting with Saturn’s magnetic field, creating an electrically charged environment that causes dust particles to electrostatically stick together, forming denser patches in the rings.

But it’s unclear whether any of these theories are true or why the phenomenon is seasonal, so scientists are hoping Hubble data over the next few years will help unravel the mystery.

Christina DENISYUK.