Chandra Release - March 8, 2004

Visual Description: Saturn

This two panel image shows Saturn.  At left, the Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the planet Saturn consists of soft purple, green, blue and pink hues. It resembles a nebula in space but with a white outline of Saturn over it to showcase where the planet is. In the center of the X-ray image, there is a bright white area where emissions peak.  On the right is a classic optical image of Saturn from Hubble colored in warm creams and greys with the planet and spectacular ring structure visible. Chandra's image of Saturn shows that its X-radiation is concentrated along the equator (white peak). The X-radiation is due to the reflection of solar X-rays by Saturn's atmosphere. The optical image of Saturn is also due to the reflection of light from the Sun – visible wavelength light in this case – but the two images obviously have dramatic differences. The optical image is much brighter and shows the beautiful ring structures, which were not detected in X-rays. These differences occur because the Sun emits about a million times more power in visible light than in X-rays, and X-rays reflect much less efficiently from Saturn's atmosphere and rings.