Did something just hit Saturn? Astronomers are racing to find out

Around seven asteroids or comets are thought to hit Saturn every year, but we have never spotted one in the act. Now, it seems one astronomer may have caught the moment of impact and the hunt is on for other images to verify the discovery

By Matthew Sparkes

7 July 2025 Last updated 9 July 2025

Is the flash highlighted in blue a data glitch, or something more?

Mario Rana

Update: The DeTeCt project has announced that the flash was not seen in additional data, so there was no impact on Saturn.

Something may have just hit Saturn – and, if so, an amateur astronomer could hold the key to confirming the event, which would be the first ever recorded on the gas giant.

About seven asteroids or comets are estimated to impact Saturn every year, but no such event has ever been caught on camera. Now, NASA employee and amateur astronomer Mario Rana has recorded images that appear to show just that.

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Rana is a contributor to a project called DeTeCt that uses software to analyse images of Jupiter and Saturn in the hopes of picking up the momentary flash of an impact. If two such flashes are caught in different data taken with different telescopes – ruling out the chance that the object is a glitch – then an impact can be verified.

Ricardo Hueso at the University of the Basque Country in Spain, who also works on DeTeCt, says that work is under way to find data that can confirm if Rana’s detected flash is the “signature of a faint impact or if it is just a noisy pixel in the camera”. In particular, astronomers want footage of Saturn taken on 5 July between 9am and 9.15am UTC.

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