"The rings are always so breathtaking"

Amateur astronomers in the northern hemisphere may be able to see Saturn at the moment, but NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken a series of images of the planet with rings that give new details about its rings, as well as only on the changing weather conditions.

In a blog post, NASA said the images captured by the telescope "are more than just beauty shots," adding that they bring a new light to a planet that has "a turbulent and dynamic atmosphere" .

"This year's Hubble offer, for example, shows that a big storm in Hubble's 2018 image in the North Polar Region has disappeared," the government agency wrote. "Smaller storms appear like popcorn in a microwave oven before disappearing just as quickly. Even the striped structure of the planet reveals subtle changes of color. "

NASA has also posted on its YouTube page a video of Hubble orbiting the moons of Saturn.

NASA added that the images taken by Hubble show that the hexagon, a mysterious six-sided motif, is still present on the north pole of Saturn. The hexagon, caused by a stream of high speed jets, was first discovered in 1981 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

The image above also gives a new clarity to the rings of Saturn, which, according to NASA, are "always so breathtaking". It shows that the ring system, composed largely of water ice, is inclined towards the Earth. On June 20, 2019, Saturn made its closest approach to Earth, about 845 million kilometers apart, the government agency added.

The sixth planet in the solar system continues to fascinate NASA. In June, the space agency unveiled the latest mission of its New Frontiers program, intended to explore Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

Known as Dragonfly, the mission will see a rotorcraft fly "to dozens of promising places" on Titan, which could potentially support extraterrestrial life after its arrival in 2034, after its launch in 2026.

Enceladus, one of Saturn's other moons, could support life by strengthening itself after researchers have determined that its ocean was probably a billion years old, which puts it in an ideal situation, according to a study published earlier this year.