[NASA] APOD: 2026 August 5 – Spokes on Saturn’s B Ring

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APOD

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3. APOD: 2026 August 5 – Spokes…

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APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

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Brad Croslin

Spokes on Saturn’s B Ring

Explanation: Don’t get spooked by Saturn’s ghostly spokes! Today we feature a nearly two-hour timelapse of Saturn and its rings looping forwards and backwards. A day on Saturn is only 10 hours long, so two hours of observation covers quite a bit of its rotation. If you look closely, a ghoulish shadow appears and disappears as 

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 rotates. Decades of observation with 

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, 

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, and 

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 show the appearance of Saturn’s spokes varies with 

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. Like Earth, Saturn’s 

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 is tilted compared to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. During Saturn’s 

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, the rings are 

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 away from the Sun and the planet receives more evenly distributed sunlight and 

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. Although their origin is still uncertain, Saturn’s spokes may be shadows of and reflections off of dust and ice levitating above the rings caused by

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 interactions between the solar wind and the planet’s magnetic field.

Find dark skies and look up this August to witness 

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 uninhibited by the Moon!
Tomorrow’s picture: the COSMOS

Date:	August 5, 2026
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Authors & editors:	Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe
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