Chennai: Saturn will put on one of its best shows of 2026 on Oct 4, when it reaches opposition—the point at which Earth lies between the Sun and Saturn—giving skywatchers an opportunity to see the ringed planet through most of the night.The alignment will occur at 5.30pm, when Saturn will be about 126,000,000km from Earth. It will rise around sunset and remain visible until sunrise.Saturn will shine at a magnitude of 0.3, a scale in which brighter objects have smaller magnitudes. It can be seen as a dot without optical aid, while a telescope will reveal its rings and some of its moons.NASA said Oct 4 will give skywatchers one of the year’s best opportunities to see Saturn.“Earth travels around the sun once a year, while saturn takes about 29.5 years to orbit the sun once. Earth’s orbit is smaller, and it moves faster than saturn. So once a year, earth passes between saturn and the sun. Astronomers call this ‘opposition’,” explained S Soundararaja Perumal, former executive director of Birla Planetarium.Saturn opposition happens every 378 days. The previous event was on Sep 21, 2025, and the next will be on Oct 16, 2027.Opposition is not unique to saturn. Perumal said the outer planets mars, jupiter, saturn, uranus and neptune can all reach opposition. Jupiter does so roughly every 399 days, while mars takes about 780 days. Uranus and neptune also reach opposition, but are not visible to the unaided eye.Earth and saturn follow elliptical orbits, so distance between them changes. “Exceptionally close saturn oppositions recur on a roughly 30-year cycle. The 2003 opposition was particularly close; the next comparable event is expected in 2032,” he said.Astrophotographer Srilakshmi N, who captured images during previous oppositions, said the changing appearance of saturn’s rings is due to the changing viewing angle as the planet moves around the sun. The rings can therefore appear differently from earth from year to year.She said the ring-plane crossing occurs roughly every 15 years, when the rings appear almost edge-on and can seem to “disappear”. The last such crossing occurred in 2025 and the next is expected in 2038.
