This Saturday, September 20, Saturn's main satellite, Titan, will cast its shadow on the ringed giant. It will be the last time it will do so for the next 14 years. These eclipses are extremely rare and only occur for a few months every fifteen years or so, when Titan's orbit aligns it with the Sun and Saturn. From November 2024 to October 2025, eclipses occurred every sixteen days. However, we will have to wait until 2038 to see the Saturnian satellite cast its shadow again on this fascinating world, the second largest after Jupiter and the only ringed one visible from Earth. This strange periodicity of eclipses is mainly due to the high inclination of Titan's orbit with respect to the planet's orbit around the Sun.

"Wake me up when September ends," sings Billie Joe Armstrong in one of the songs on the album American idiotby the punk-rock band Green Day. In this song, the singer pays tribute to his father who died one September day. The fact is that this month, like the song itself, has a melancholic quality for many people: the holidays are coming to an end, summer is drawing to a close with the days getting shorter, and everything returns to its harsh routine, which provokes an unconscious desire for October to arrive quickly. Fortunately, we can heal the nostalgia for times past, even if only partially, with a night sky filled with diverse and interesting offerings.