Saturn

From Slackerpedia Galactica

Saturn in all her glory, from Cassini.

Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system. Despite its huge size, if you get a bowl of water big enough, it'll be the only planet in our solar system that would float.

Saturn's atmospheric winds are very fast, clocked at 500 m/s (1116 mph) so far. This is one reason its atmosphere looks much smoother than the other gas giants. Below the atmosphere are layers of molecular hydrogen and then liquid hydrogen. At the center is a rocky core. Like Jupiter, Saturn emits more heat than it gains from the Sun, but the source of the heat is unknown.

NASA currently has the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. Cassini launched the ESA's Huygens probe which landed on Titan in 2005.

1 The Rings
2 Observing Saturn
3 External Links
4 Some Known Moons

The Rings

A combination of 165 images from Cassini. Details here. (NASA)

Saturn's rings are made up of small particles of dust and ice. The largest are believed to be the size of small boulders, but most are only tiny specks. They are also very spread out. Passing through the rings would be quite safe, relatively speaking.

No one is sure how the rings were created, but the dominant theory is that around 30 million years ago a moon or large comet got too close and was torn apart by tidal forces. Neptune's moon Triton may suffer a similar fate and create a future ring system around Neptune (in a few hundred million years).

The rings are slowly disintegrating. Some of the material is being knocked away by the solar wind and regular space debris while some of it is also precipitating into Saturn.

The rings appear in different orientations as viewed from the Earth. Sometimes we see the top side as shown in the photo at right. Sometimes we see the bottom side (or is that the top?). And sometimes the rings are nearly invisible when we see them edge-on.

Observing Saturn

Saturn is easily seen by amateur astronomers. With a pair of good binoculars, Saturn's weird oblong shape is clearly discernable - as are many of its larger moons. A challenge to amateur astronomers is the Cassini Division, a dark band between the rings. With a good size scope, steady seeing and dark skies it can sometimes be a sight to behold.