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Saturn
Fact File
3581/ The three objects in the
solar system that are known to have nitrogen-dominated atmospheres
are Earth, Saturn's moon Titan and Neptune's moon Triton.
3582/ Driving at 75 miles per
hour, it would take 258 days to drive around one of Saturn's
rings.
3583/ Saturn has a magnetic field
1,000 times greater than the Earth's, and 20 times weaker
then Jupiter's. When Pioneer 11 passed beneath the outer edge
of Ring A: the flux of charged particles was abruptly cut
off, indicating that there is an interaction between the rings
and the magnetic field. Saturn is unique in that its magnetic
axis corresponds almost exactly to the axis of rotation.
3584/ Hydrogen is the most abundant
element (about 94 percent) in Saturn's atmosphere, then helium
(about 6 percent).
3585/ Voyager 1 and 2 together
discovered 22 planetary satellites (moons): 3 new moons for
Jupiter, 3 for Saturn, 10 for Uranus and 6 for Neptune.
3586/ Saturn's rings are made
of chunks of water ice ranging in size from dust to large
houses.
3587/ Saturn is the second biggest
planet, but it’s also the lightest planet. If there
was a bathtub big enough to hold Saturn, it would float in
the water! Its density is only 0.13 that of Earth. (That's
because Earth is made of rocks and stuff, and Saturn is pretty
much just gas.)
3588/ Titan is the largest moon
of Saturn and the second largest moon in the entire solar
system.
3589/ Saturn is named after the
Roman god of agriculture. The day Saturday is also named after
him.
3590/ Saturn was discovered by
Galileo in 1610.
3591/ Saturns rings are very
wide: 150,000 miles in diameter. But very thin: only a few
hundred yards thick.
3592/ Because of the tilt of
Saturn and the thinness of the rings, every 14 years the rings
look like they've disappeared when viewed through a small
or medium sized telescope.
3593/ When Galileo discovered
Saturn in 1610, he had less advanced equipment than we do
now. He noticed Saturn's disappearing/reappearing rings and
thought he was losing his mind!
3594/ The Cassini Huygens mission
to Saturn was launched from Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 15,
1997.
3595/ Saturn is huge. It is the
second largest planet in our Solar System. Only Jupiter is
bigger. If you could line them up, more than nine Earths would
fit across Saturn.
3596/ We now know that other
planets have rings, but Saturn's are the only ones that are
visible from Earth even with a small telescope.
3597/ It's pretty windy on Saturn.
Winds around the planet's equator can reach 1,800 kilometers
(1,118 miles) per hour. In comparison, the fastest winds on
Earth "only" reach about 400 kilometers (about 250
miles) per hour.
3598/ Because of this rapid spin
and its low-density interior, Saturn is noticeably flattened,
top and bottom. Saturn is 10 percent fatter in the middle
than at the poles.
3599/ The Ringed Planet is so
far away from the Sun that it receives only about 1/80th the
amount of sunlight that we do here on Earth. And yes, the
Sun appears much smaller from Saturn then from Earth.
3600/ Scientists are particularly
interested in Titan because it's one of the few known moons
with its own dense atmosphere. Titan's atmosphere is also
thought to be very similar to what Earth's atmosphere was
a long time ago. By learning about Titan, we will also be
learning about our own planet.
Want to
know more?
Well, you can also
read...
An editorial on
FirstScience called Titan
Tastic!
An article on FirstScience
about the Sights
and Sounds of Titan
Click on the links below for more great
facts...
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