<![CDATA[Blue Skies on Saturn:
“Saturn’s skies are blue, we think, for the same reason Earth’s skies are blue,” says West. Molecules in the atmosphere scatter sunlight. On Earth the molecules are oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2). On Saturn the molecules are hydrogen (H2). Different planets, different molecules, but the effect is the same: blue light gets scattered around the sky. Other colors are scattered, too, but not as much as blue. Physicists call this “Rayleigh scattering.”
End of story? Not quite….
The picture on this page of the shadows cast in Saturn’s blue sky by its rings is something to behold.]]>