Sometimes Saturn disappears. It doesn't really go away, of course -- it just
disappears from our view when
Earth's Moon moves in front. Such a
Saturnian eclipse, more formally called an
occultation, was visible in early 2025 along a small
swath of
Earth -- from
Greenland through central
Europe and into northern
Africa. The
featured image is a digital fusion of three images, the first of just
Saturn before it disappeared, and then two more of the Moon with
different exposure lengths. The images were taken from
Sardinia,
Italy, after sunset. The bright dot near Saturn is not a
moon of Saturn, but rather the star
85 Aquarii, which is further behind Saturn than Saturn is behind the Moon. The next time the
Moon moves in front of Saturn, as visible from
some place on Earth, will be in 2031.