Explanation:
What if Saturn disappeared?
Sometimes, it does.
It doesn’t really go away, though, it just disappears from view when our
Moon moves in front.
Such a Saturnian eclipse, more formally called an
occultation, was visible along a
long swath of Earth — from
Peru,
across the Atlantic Ocean, to
Italy —
only a few days ago.
The
featured color image is a digital fusion of the
clearest images captured during
the event
and rebalanced for color and relative brightness between
the relatively dim Saturn and the comparatively bright Moon.
Saturn and the
comparative bright Moon.
The exposures were all taken from
Breda,
Catalonia,
Spain,
just before occultation.
Eclipses of Saturn by
our Moon will occur
each month for the rest of this year.
Each time, though, the fleeting event will be visible
only to those with clear skies — and the right
location on
Earth.