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White to move and mate in two #644 - Earth crosses Saturn's ring plane [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-25
On Sunday, March 23, 2025, Earth crossed the plane of Saturn's rings, making the ~10m thick rings, seen edge-on, almost invisible.
Given Saturn's orbital period of 29.45 yr, its 26.73° tilted rings are seen from Earth at different angles. Every 13 to 15 years, Earth crosses the ring plane making the view edge-on. It's not exactly half the orbital period because of Earth's movement.
Past and future ring crossings: 1995, 2009, 2025 and 2038.
Here are some yearly images of Saturn by Hubble since 1990. Note the edge-on view in 1995 and the near edge-on view in 2009 and 2024.
Saturn’s quite thin rings shine brightly because it is composed of trillions of particles of of water ice, which have a high reflectance. Galileo first saw Saturn’s rings in 1610 using his primitive telescope.
Here is an image of Saturn with its rings seen edge-on by Hubble on Aug 6, 1995. The rings appear as a thin gray line. The thicker darker line below it and across Saturn is the shadow of the rings on Saturn's cloud-tops, caused by the Sun which was above the ring plane.
The 2nd image was taken a few months later on Nov 17, 1995. The tilted ring is now visible but is still dull gray in color.
Now let’s solve today’s puzzle composed in 1901 by noted British composer Frederic Bonner Feast (1872 - 1941), co-author of "Simple Two-Move Themes" (1924) and author of "Chess Cameos. A treatise on the two-move problem" (1936).
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