Saturn's Equitorial Bands

I'm very surprised that no one has shown any interest in the following new ground-breaking images from the Hubble telescope. I discovered a series of very peculiar images when viewing the latest video file from Nasa depicting Saturn which can be viewed in this thread.

Basically we are witnessing a rare series of images of Saturn with its' ring edge-on to the camera.

The stated feature of this series in the aurora created by the planets magnetic poles, but I noticed something far more interesting and wondered whether anyone had some ideas about what this spectacular feature might represent.

Take a look at this series of pictures which show the aurora, but also show a peculiar band across the equatorial region of the planet which appears to move wildly and out of sync which the poles of the planet. I have indicated this band with red lines, which can be seen on either side of the line.

What could this be?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3f3bbe328442.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/64c8058efd6b.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2d3951113329.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/02e1145f721e.jpg[/atsimg]

s+F for this, it may turn out to be nothing, but hopefully someone can give good explination

my first thought was shadows... but theirs nothing to cause the shadows.

its almost like the planet has a split in it, like a nut in a shell.

At first I thought that these bands might be caused the by gravitational pull of one of the planets moons, but then surely it would affect the ring in the same dramatic manner as it does the planet. Besides, no moon orbits the Saturn in sch an eccentric manner.

Any ideas?

I'm no expert, but it looks to me like a photo-shopped picture.

Whilst not suggesting that it is, from having seen a lot of shops I might suggest this is more of a computer issue/digital artifact than anything that is really there.

reply to post by The_Modulus


If you look closely, particularly in the last photo, you can see that the bands pass over Saturns rings and are not on the planet's surface. I think it may have something to do with structure of the telescope lens itself combined with the brightness of the planet. In dimmer star photographs, you probably can't see the bands.

[edit on 2/26/2010 by AntManBee]

reply to post by AntManBee


That is a good point, although it is not entirely clear. Either way, it would still be a strange camera anomaly. Why?

reply to post by The_Modulus


Sorry, I wasn't very specific in my first post. The Hubble telescope is a reflecting telescope with a large primary mirror. This primary mirror directs light from astronomical objects to a much smaller secondary mirror, which then bounces it back through a hole at the center of the primary mirror to the telescope's instruments. The secondary mirror is supported by a metal framework in the center of the telescope tube, so the light has to pass through this framework before reaching the primary mirror. I think these bands are reflections of the secondary mirror supports in the primary mirror, which then reflects them to the secondary mirror and on to the instruments. The planets are bright enough for these supports to appear in the photos, but typical star and galaxy photos don't generate enough light for them to become visible. The bands appearing over Saturn's rings is what lead me to this conclusion.

I admit I'm no expert, but that's my theory. If there are any Hubble telescope experts out there I'd be happy to hear your opinions.

reply to post by AntManBee


Ask and you shall receive

There are some obvious artifacts in the images, parallel lines crossing the view at an angle. I asked him what caused those. "The images were obtained using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Solar Blind Channel (SBC), which has a number of idiosyncrasies including a bust row of pixels and a shadow from a 'repeller wire.' We try to compensate for these, e.g. by interpolating across the blank row of pixels, but the results are not perfect and result in the faint lines you see in the images."

reply to post by The_Modulus


You could have searched Goggle for "hubble parallel lines" and found your answer in a few seconds

[edit on 5-3-2010 by davesidious]

reply to post by davesidious


Well, that settles it. At least I was in the ballpark with my "support structure" theory. Thanks for the reply!

You can also see a faint vertical line perpendicular to the parallel lines on the left third of the image. This line also rotates with the parallel lines, making it even more clear that these are artifacts and not features of Saturn's atmosphere.