Overview
- Rings will shrink to less than 1% of their usual visibility around November 23, with the thinnest view about 7 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.
- Observers should look in the southeastern sky after sunset and use a small backyard telescope, with viewing possible until roughly 3:30 a.m. local time.
- The effect is a ring-plane crossing that recurs about every 13–15 years, following an unobservable crossing in March because of solar glare.
- Researchers led by Philip Nicholson plan James Webb Space Telescope observations to study the tenuous e-ring and search for carbon tied to Enceladus’s plumes.
- Saturn’s rings appear to vanish because they are only about 30 feet thick despite spanning roughly 175,000 miles, and they will widen again over coming months, reaching peak apparent width in late 2027 before the next observable crossing in 2038.