Saturn appeared without its rings on November 23 due to a rare alignment called a ring plane crossing. During this event, Saturn’s rings turn edge-on to Earth and become nearly invisible because they are extremely thin, only tens of metres thick, despite spanning over 280,000 kilometres. The alignment occurs every 13 to 15 years. A similar event in March was not visible due to the Sun's glare. This time, Saturn was seen in the constellation Pisces, with only faint shadows detectable through larger telescopes. In 2018, NASA said Saturn’s rings are also slowly fading over millions of years due to “ring rain.”
