September 25, 2025
On your birthday, photons that left distant stars before humans walked the Earth finally completed their journey. You began yours.
Saturn Opposite the Sun
Birthday · September 25, 2025
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APOD published September 25, 2025. Credit: Jin Wang. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
This year Saturn was at opposition on September 21, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. At its closest to Earth, Saturn was also at its brightest of the year, rising as the Sun set and shining above the horizon all night long among the fainter stars of the constellation Pisces. In this snapshot from the Qinghai Lenghu Observatory, Tibetan Plateau, southwestern China, the outer planet is immersed in a faint, diffuse oval of light known as the gegenschein or counter glow. The diffuse gegenschein is produced by sunlight backscattered by interplanetary dust along the Solar System's ecliptic plane, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. Like a giant eye, on this dark night Saturn and gegenschein seem to stare down on the observatory's telescope domes from their antisolar perspective. Strong atmospheric airglow forms a colorful background along the horizon.
Image credit: Jin Wang