In 2025, Saturn’s spectacular rings will disappear. But it won’t be too long before they come back into sight in all their splendor. Their disappearance, after all, is all a matter of perspective.
A combination of thin rings, Saturn’s tilt, and Earth’s own orbital movements will make the rings disappear from our perspective. Saturn’s rings will be nearly edge on for the whole year, but we will see them totally edge on in March and November, says Jonti Horner, astrobiologist and astronomer at the University of Southern Queensland.
That means viewing the rings through anything other than a very powerful telescope will be close to impossible. The last time this happened was in 2009 and it will continue to occur for years to come.
“If you want to see the rings, now's your chance, because they’re going away for a couple of years,” says Horner. “But they will be back.”
