Saturn

Saturn, the Prettiest Planet.

The planet **Saturn** is the 6th planet from the Sun. It is the second largest planet in the Solar System, and also holds the title for having the most moons.

Saturn is most famous for its complex ring system, which are made mostly of ice chunks and crystals. Saturn is a Gas Planet, like Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.

## Atmosphere

The atmosphere of Saturn is extremely dense and thick. So thick, the atmosphere makes up about 45% of Saturn itself. The atmosphere stretches downward from the purplish-blue, hexagonic northern pole. The atmosphere stretches down about 45% of the way to the core of Saturn itself. Below the atmosphere is metallic hydrogen and molten rock.

The atmosphere is mainly consists of Hydrogen and Helium. The rest include Phosphorous, Germanium, Carbon, Ammonia, and other trace elements.

## Orbit and Rotation

Saturn is around 9 times the distance from the Sun than the Earth. Therefore it takes much longer to orbit the Sun than the Earth, taking approximately 30 years to orbit the sun!

Saturn is a jovian planet/one of the gas giants, therefore it rotates on its axis much faster than the inner rocky planets. Saturn takes approximately 10 hours and 30 minutes to make one rotation on its axis. Since Saturn rotates on its axis extremely quickly, this causes the planet to distort its shape. Saturn distorts at the poles and bulges toward the equator due to its fast spinning.

## Rings

Saturn's ring system is the most complex, massive and largest of all of the rings of the other gas giants in the Solar System. The rings of Saturn encircle the entire planet at exactly the equator. The rings measure about 288,000 km in diameter, yet measure about 47 1/2 meters in thickness, about half the length of a US football field. Therefore, Saldy, these rings can only be seen with high-powered and large telescope.

It is theorized that Saturn's rings formed from a former satellite around 100 million years ago when a large asteroid destroyed the moon and caused it to get obliterated and shatter like glass into a ring. The leftover debris from this impact also clumped together to form parts of Tethys and Enceladus. Because the rings are so thin, every 14 ~ 15 years, when Saturn periodically turns its rings edge on Earth, the rings can actually visibly disappear when viewed with a telescope. This event is referred to as a "Ring Plane Crossing".

## Formation

Saturn's core formed as a clump of rocky material and particles that remained from the formation of the Sun and Jupiter. Saturn's core was a super-earth about 10 times Earth's mass.

However, because of the abundance of gaseous materials scattered everywhere in the Solar System, Saturn's gravitational pull attracted large amounts of particles and gas that led to the thickening of its atmosphere, eventually becoming a Jovian gas planet.

## Composition

The rings of Saturn is not one ring, as suggested by Huygens, but actually made up of three main rings: The **A, B, and C rings** (also known as the **Crepe ring**). The **A ring** is the ring farthest from the planet of Saturn, though the recently discovered **F ring** is supposedly farther from the planet than the A ring. The A ring consists of the smaller rock particles, such as those as small as marbles. The whitest and brightest ring is the closer **B ring**. This ring contains chunks of ice the size of houses and buildings. The A and B rings are separated by the **Cassini Division**, a 4800 km wide gap between these two rings created by gravitational influences, or **resonances** with Saturn's moons. The ring closest to Saturn is the faintest ring, the **C-ring**, also known as the **Crepe ring**, due to it representing a nearly transparent fabric known as **crepe ring.**

## Exploration

Saturn has Only been Explored by 4 Probes. They are Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, 2, and Cassini.

### *Pioneer 11* flyby

*Pioneer 11* made the first flyby of Saturn in September 1979, when it passed within 20,000 km of the planet's cloud tops. Images were taken of the planet and a few of its moons, although their resolution was too low to discern surface detail. The spacecraft also studied Saturn's rings, revealing the thin F-ring and the fact that dark gaps in the rings are bright when viewed at high phase angle (towards the Sun), meaning that they contain fine light-scattering material. In addition, *Pioneer 11* measured the temperature of Titan.

### Voyager flybys

In November 1980, the *Voyager 1* probe visited the Saturn system. It sent back the first high-resolution images of the planet, its rings and satellites. Surface features of various moons were seen for the first time. *Voyager 1* performed a close flyby of Titan, increasing knowledge of the atmosphere of the moon. It proved that Titan's atmosphere is impenetrable in visible wavelengths; therefore no surface details were seen. The flyby changed the spacecraft's trajectory out from the plane of the Solar System.

Almost a year later, in August 1981, *Voyager 2* continued the study of the Saturn system. More close-up images of Saturn's moons were acquired, as well as evidence of changes in the atmosphere and the rings. Unfortunately, during the flyby, the probe's turnable camera platform stuck for a couple of days and some planned imaging was lost. Saturn's gravity was used to direct the spacecraft's trajectory towards Uranus.

The probes discovered and confirmed several new satellites orbiting near or within the planet's rings, as well as the small Maxwell Gap (a gap within the C Ring) and Keeler gap (a 42 km-wide gap in the A Ring).

### *Cassini–Huygens* spacecraft

At Enceladus's south pole geysers spray water from many locations along the tiger stripes.
The *Cassini–Huygens* space probe entered orbit around Saturn on 1 July 2004. In June 2004, it conducted a close flyby of Phoebe, sending back high-resolution images and data. *Cassini*'s flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, captured radar images of large lakes and their coastlines with numerous islands and mountains. The orbiter completed two Titan flybys before releasing the *Huygens* probe on 25 December 2004. *Huygens* descended onto the surface of Titan on 14 January 2005.

Starting in early 2005, scientists used *Cassini* to track lightning on Saturn. The power of the lightning is approximately 1,000 times that of lightning on Earth.

In 2006, NASA reported that *Cassini* had found evidence of liquid water reservoirs no more than tens of meters below the surface that erupt in geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. These jets of icy particles are emitted into orbit around Saturn from vents in the moon's south polar region. Over 100 geysers have been identified on Enceladus. In May 2011, NASA scientists reported that Enceladus "is emerging as the most habitable spot beyond Earth in the Solar System for life as we know it".
Saturn eclipses the Sun, as seen from *Cassini*. The rings are visible, including the F Ring.

*Cassini* photographs have revealed a previously undiscovered planetary ring, outside the brighter main rings of Saturn and inside the G and E rings. The source of this ring is hypothesized to be the crashing of a meteoroid off Janus and Epimetheus. In July 2006, images were returned of hydrocarbon lakes near Titan's north pole, the presence of which were confirmed in January 2007. In March 2007, hydrocarbon seas were found near the North pole, the largest of which is almost the size of the Caspian Sea. In October 2006, the probe detected an 8,000 km diameter cyclone-like storm with an eyewall at Saturn's south pole.

From 2004 to 2 November 2009, the probe discovered and confirmed eight new satellites. In April 2013 *Cassini* sent back images of a hurricane at the planet's north pole 20 times larger than those found on Earth, with winds faster than 530 km/h (330 mph). On 15 September 2017, the *Cassini-Huygens* spacecraft performed the "Grand Finale" of its mission: a number of passes through gaps between Saturn and Saturn's inner rings. The atmospheric entry of *Cassini*ended the mission.

## Possible future missions

The continued exploration of Saturn is still considered to be a viable option for NASA as part of their ongoing New Frontiers program of missions. NASA previously requested for plans to be put forward for a mission to Saturn that included the Saturn Atmospheric Entry Probe, and possible investigations into the habitability and possible discovery of life on Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus by *Dragonfly*.

## Moons

Saturn has 146 Known Moons. Saturn’s Largest moon is Titan, that is Bigger then Mercury!