Saturn Planet Profile
|
Equatorial Diameter:
|
120,536 km (74,897.6 mi)
|
|
Polar Diameter:
|
108,728 km (67,560.4 mi)
|
|
Mass:
|
5.68 × 10^26 kg (95 Earths)
|
|
Moons:
|
146 (Titan, Enceladus, Iapetus, Rhea)
|
|
Rings:
|
30+ (7 Groups)
|
|
Orbit Distance:
|
1,426,666,422 km (886,489,415.6 mi) (9.54 AU) |
|
Orbit Period:
|
10,756 days (29.5 years)
|
|
Effective Temperature:
|
-178 °C (-288.4 °F)
|
|
First Record:
|
8th century BC
|
|
Recorded By:
|
Assyrians
|
|
|
Detailed Saturn Facts
- Saturn can be seen with the naked eye.
It is the fifth brightest object in the solar system and is also easily studied through binoculars or a small telescope.
- Saturn was known to the ancients, including the Babylonians and Far Eastern observers.
It is named for the Roman god Saturnus, and was known to the Greeks as Cronus.
- Saturn is the flattest planet.
Its polar diameter is 90% of its equatorial diameter, this is due to its low density and fast rotation. Saturn turns on its axis once every 10 hours and 34 minutes giving it the second-shortest day of any of the solar system's planets.
- Saturn orbits the Sun once every 29.4 Earth years.
Its slow movement against the backdrop of stars earned it the nickname of 'Lubadsagush' from the ancient Assyrians. The name means 'oldest of the old'.
- Saturn's upper atmosphere is divided into bands of clouds.
The top layers are mostly ammonia ice. Below them, the clouds are largely water ice. Below are layers of cold hydrogen and sulfur ice mixtures.
- Saturn has oval-shaped storms similar to Jupiter's.
The region around its north pole has a hexagonal-shaped pattern of clouds. Scientists think this may be a wave pattern in the upper clouds. The planet also has a vortex over its south pole that resembles a hurricane-like storm.
- Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen.
It exists in layers that get denser farther into the planet. Eventually, deep inside, the hydrogen becomes metallic. At the core lies a hot interior.
- Saturn has the most extensive rings in the solar system.
The Saturnian rings are made mostly of chunks of ice and small amounts of carbonaceous dust. The rings stretch out more than 120,700 km (74,999.5 mi) from the planet, but are are amazingly thin: only about 20 meters (65.6 feet) thick.
- Saturn has 146 moons and smaller moonlets.
All are frozen worlds. The largest moons are Titan and Rhea. Enceladus appears to have an ocean below its frozen surface.
- Titan is a moon with complex and dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere.
It is composed mostly of water ice and rock. Its frozen surface has lakes of liquid methane and landscapes covered with frozen nitrogen. Planetary scientists consider Titan to be a possible harbour for life, but not Earth-like life.
- Four spacecraft have visited Saturn.
Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and the Cassini-Huygens mission have all studied the planet. Cassini recently de-orbited Saturn, but has sent back a wealth of data about the planet, its moons, and rings.
- Science Fiction Books - Saturn
- Asimov, Isaac (writing as Paul French)
- Lucky Starr
- Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn (1958)
- - Synopsis -
Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn is set mostly within the Saturnian system, depicted as accurately as the knowledge of the late 1950s allowed. At that time, only nine satellites had been discovered, the innermost known satellite being Mimas. Asimov describes Mimas as being 340 miles in diameter, but its diameter is now known to be 240 miles. Several of the novel's chapters are set on Titan, which was then thought to be the third largest satellite in the Solar System, after Ganymede and Triton. Its atmosphere is described as "almost as thick as Earth's" and composed mostly of methane. It is now known that Titan is the second largest satellite in the Solar System after Ganymede, and that its atmosphere is denser than Earth's and is 98.4% nitrogen and only 1.6% methane. The final chapters take place on the asteroid Vesta, which Asimov notes is the brightest of the asteroids. At the time, it was believed that Vesta was 215 miles in diameter, although its mean diameter is now known to be closer to 330 miles.
- Reynolds, Alastair
- Saturn's Moon Janus
- Pushing Ice (2005)
- - Synopsis -
Pushing Ice begins in the distant future, where the elected rulers of the "Congress of the Lindblad Ring" gather to decide on a suitable ceremony to honor a woman they consider responsible for the technological advancement and territorial expansion of the future human race, Bella Lind. To explain her role, the chronology is then pushed back to the early days of humanity's manned exploration of the solar system, where it is explained that Lind is the captain of the Rockhopper, a spacecraft used for mining cometary ice. While on a routine mission, Lind is informed that Saturn's moon Janus has deviated from its normal orbit, and is accelerating out of the solar system. The Rockhopper, deemed the only ship capable of catching up to Janus, is asked to undertake the task of pursuing the moon, sending back as much information as possible before being forced to turn back by the limitations of fuel and supplies. However, on their approach to the moon, revealed to be a camouflaged alien spacecraft, Lind and her crew are caught in the field of the ship's inertialess drive, causing them to travel farther and faster than expected, and beyond their capacity to return to Earth. Realising their predicament, the crew decide to land on the moon and attempt to survive the flight out of the solar system, wherever it may take them. Eventually it becomes apparent that ship is heading towards Spica, a close binary pair in the constellation of Virgo.
- Sandford, John and Ctein
- Saturn
- Saturn Run (2015)
- - Synopsis -
The year is 2066. A Caltech intern inadvertently notices an anomaly from a space telescope - something is approaching Saturn, and decelerating. Space objects don't decelerate. Spaceships do. A flurry of top-level government meetings produces the inescapable conclusion: Whatever built that ship is at least one hundred years ahead in hard and soft technology, and whoever can get their hands on it exclusively and bring it back will have an advantage so large, no other nation can compete. A conclusion the Chinese definitely agree with when they find out. The race is on, and an remarkable adventure begins - an epic tale of courage, treachery, resourcefulness, secrets, surprises, and astonishing human and technological discovery, as the members of a hastily thrown-together crew find their strength and wits tested against adversaries both of this earth and beyond. What happens is nothing like you expect - and everything you could want from one of the world's greatest masters of suspense.
|
Saturn's Rings
While all the gas giants in our solar system have rings none of them are as extensive or distinctive as Saturn's. The rings were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610 who observed them with a telescope. The first 'up close' view of the rings were by Pioneer 11 spacecraft which flew by Saturn on September 1, 1971.
Saturn's rings are made up of billions of particles that range in size from tiny dust grains to objects as large as mountains. These are made up of chunks of ice and rock, believed to have come from asteroids comets or even moons, that broke apart before they reached the planet.
Saturn's rings are divided into 7 groups, named alphabetically in the order of their discovery (Outwards from Saturn; D, C, B, A, F, G and E). The F ring is kept in place by two of Saturn's moons, Prometheus and Pandora, these are referred to as 'shepherd moons'. Other satellites are responsible for creating divisions in the rings as well as shepherding them.
More information and details on Saturn's rings can be found here.
|