Saturn is a gas giant with rings and numerous moons, including Titan. It is the most oblate planet in the solar system and is composed mostly of hydrogen. The Cassini orbiter arrived in 2004 and launched a probe into Titan’s atmosphere, sending back images of hydrocarbon seas.
Saturn is a gas giant in the outer solar system, just beyond the orbit of Jupiter. It is famous for its large, beautiful rings and numerous moons, including one with its own atmosphere, Titan. Saturn orbits about 9 AU (Sun-Earth distance) from the Sun, making one revolution every 29.5 years. The day of the week Saturday is named after Saturn. It takes its name from the Roman god Saturn, father of Jupiter. Saturn can be seen as a yellowish star with the naked eye, but you need binoculars or a telescope to see its rings.
Saturn is the most oblate planet in the solar system, meaning its diameter is about 10% greater than the distance between its poles. This is due to a combination of low density, rapid rotation, and gaseous state. Like all other gas giants, Saturn is composed mostly of hydrogen. It has a rocky core that includes metallic hydrogen. Traces of ammonia, water, ammonium and hydrosulfide crystals are suspended in its atmosphere.
Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens was the first to definitively observe Saturn’s rings, in 1655. Galileo Galilei observed them earlier but called them “ears” and was puzzled when they would vanish when they became perpendicular from Earth’s perspective. Saturn has many rings and many spaces between them, the largest called the Cassini Division, after Giovanni Cassini who first discovered the discreteness of the rings.
In 2004, a spacecraft bearing the Cassini name, the Cassini orbiter, arrived at Saturn and shortly thereafter launched a probe, Huygens, into Titan’s atmosphere. This was the first man-made object to land on an outer solar system body and send observations. It continued to broadcast for 45 minutes after a 2.5-hour descent through Titan’s thick atmosphere to the surface. It sent images of seas of hydrocarbons, which scientists strongly expected would be there. Titan is of great interest to scientists because it is seen both as a potential future colonization target and as a possible carrier of exotic life.
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