One of the best and most exciting targets for amateur astronomers is the planet Saturn. What makes Saturn a wonderful target is not only its reliability in being available for viewing, but also its iconic rings.

Although the planet didn’t and won’t always have its rings, they provide amazing viewing experiences. However, in 2025, the rings will NOT be visible for astronomers on Earth. What happened to cause this? Is this permanent or just an interesting coincidence?

To answer this question, one has to understand that it takes Saturn 29.5 years to complete one revolution around the Sun. As it circles the Sun, the angle of the Saturn’s rings relative to the Sun varies by 27.3 degrees. Twice during the 29.5 years, the rings are edge-on to the Sun, and when this happens, the Earth appears not more than 6 degrees from the Sun. When this happens and the Earth crosses the ring plane at around the same time, the rings appear to disappear when viewed with a small telescope. The reason for this “disappearance” is that Saturns rings are so thin and are aligned edge-on to the Earth.

Some additional characteristics of a ring plane crossing:

• There may be 1 or 3 Earth crossings (always an odd number) during any half-orbit of Saturn (15 years). 
• If there is only one Earth crossing then Saturn and the Earth will be on almost opposite sides of the Sun, making observations of Saturn difficult. 
• If there are three crossings, the middle one is near opposition (when Saturn and the Earth are closest to each other) and the other two are near quadratures. 
• The chance of three intersections is about 53% and the chance of one intersection is about 47%. 
• There is an occasional case where the Earth hangs in the plane without passing through it.

The good news is that the rings will return in 2026. The rings will next be edge-on to Earth in May 2032. 

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