The sky often treats us to new wonders like meteor showers, intriguing planets, and captivating lunar eclipses. However, it’s not just about new arrivals in space — some things are saying their goodbyes and Saturn’s famous rings are on the way out. Scientists are closely monitoring this phenomenon.
Soon, Saturn’s rings are going to disappear from our view.
© NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute / Wikimedia Commons, © Public domain
Those iconic rings we’ve admired from Earth will no longer be visible in just 18 short months. These rings are composed of a mix of icy and rocky bits, often dust-coated, encircling the sixth planet in our solar system. But the reality is, even though it might not seem soon in human terms, they are on the path to becoming invisible to us by 2025, a cosmic blink of an eye. While the full disappearance will take millions of years, the show in the night sky won’t last much longer.
© NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Wikimedia Commons, © Public domain
Here’s why this is happening: as Saturn orbits the Sun, its tilt angle will drop to zero on March 23, 2025. When this tilt reaches zero, it essentially means that Saturn will present itself perfectly on its side to us here on Earth. Saturn is about 746 million miles away from us at its nearest point, and when it’s sideways, we won’t see its iconic rings. This unique alignment will occur again on October 15, 2038, and then in quick succession on April 1 and July 9, 2039.
© NASA / ESA / A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley), OPAL Team / Wikimedia Commons, © Public domain, © NASA / JPL / Wikimedia Commons, © Public domain
After Saturn’s rings disappear in 2025, we won’t get a full view of them again until 2032. Saturn’s rings are tilted towards our planet at an angle of nine degrees. By next year, this tilt will reduce to only 3.7 degrees. We haven’t witnessed this disappearing act since September 2009; prior to that, it hadn’t occurred since February 1996. So, it’s a relatively rare event for skywatchers to witness.
NASA captured an image of an unusual celestial object resembling a question mark.
© Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI) / NASA, ESA, CSA
NASA’s James Webb Telescope has spotted a mysterious object shaped like a question mark. Although the true nature of this object is currently unknown, scientists have some speculations about it. This intriguing discovery has piqued the interest of astronomers and researchers eager to learn more about this enigmatic celestial feature.
© Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI) / NASA, ESA, CSA
The object is part of the Herbig Haro 46/47 star system, where two young stars orbit each other under the influence of gravity. These stars are located in the Vela Constellation, approximately 1,470 light-years away from Earth. The object’s distinct question mark shape is of a reddish hue, signifying it is more distant than the other stars in the image.
The true nature of this celestial entity remains a puzzle, but its unique shape and color provide some hints. It may represent a distant galaxy or even the result of two galaxies colliding, which gives it the distinctive question mark appearance. This interpretation is supported by experts at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore.
The search for extraterrestrial life continues, and with technological advancements and our understanding of the cosmos, we may one day make significant discoveries. In the meantime, exploring the wonders of the starry sky through cosmic images can be a truly enchanting experience.
The Life and Career of Oscar Winning Actress, Sally Field
Sally Field, an actress who has won Academy, Emmy, and Golden Globe Awards, is well-known for her parts in the films “Forrest Gump,” “Brothers and Sisters,” “Lincoln,” and “Steel Magnolias.”
The 76-year-old actress launched her career in 1965 with the lead part in “Gidget.” She has since made several TV appearances, motion pictures, and Broadway performances.
Field has also been open about her struggles in her personal life. She discusses her stepfather’s sexual abuse of her as well as her battles with depression, self-doubt, and loneliness in her 2018 memoir “In Pieces.”
On November 6, 1946, Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California. Her mother was the actress Margaret Field (née Morlan), and her father was a salesman named Richard Dryden Field. Her mother married actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney following her parent’s divorce. Richard Field, Sally’s brother, and Princess O’Mahoney, her half-sister, are both living.
HER PERSONAL LIFE
Sally Field married Steven Craig in 1968, and they had two sons, Peter and Eli. They divorced in 1975, and she married Alan Greisman in 1984. They had one son together, Samuel, before divorcing in 1994. From 1976 to 1980, she dated Burt Reynolds, a difficult relationship she discusses in her memoir.
She recounts his controlling behavior and how he convinced Field not to attend the Emmy ceremony where she won for “Sybil.” Reynolds actually died just before her book’s release, and in his own memoir, he called their failed relationship “the biggest regret of my life” in his 2015 memoir “But Enough About Me.”
Meanwhile, Fields said they hadn’t spoken for 30 years before his passing. “He was not someone I could be around,” she explained. “He was just not good for me in any way. And he had somehow invented in his rethinking of everything that I was more important to him than he had thought, but I wasn’t. He just wanted to have the thing he didn’t have. I just didn’t want to deal with that.”
These days, Sally Field keeps her Oscars and Emmys in a TV room where she plays video games with her grandkids. So far, Field shows no signs of retiring with her film “Spoiler Alert” releasing next week, as well as “80 for Brady” coming in 2023.
“As an actor, she dared this town to typecast her, and then simply broke through every dogmatic barrier to find her own way — not to stardom, which I imagine she’d decry, but to great roles in great films and television,” said Steven Spielberg, her friend and “Lincoln” director. “Through her consistently good taste and feisty persistence, she has survived our ever-changing culture, stood the test of time and earned this singular place in history.”
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