The Saturn

This is the second biggest in our solar system and the only planet whose average mass does not exceed that of water so if there is a sea that surround Saturn could soar.

At Saturn from a modern telescope in 1610, Galileo draw it as a globe bounded by two smaller ones as a head with large ears (the first one who came up with the Mickey Mouse logo). Galileo thought it was moons but when two years later reviewed the planet had disappeared. Later in 1655 the Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens discovered Saturn having had a satellite orbiting Titan, announced that the planet should be surrounded by an equatorial ring.

Saturn drawing

Is so thin, flat ring disappears when seen "lying" about our perspective, which happens every two years in the 29 it takes Saturn to orbit the Sun is considered in antiquity as the outermost of the planets is today along with its 22 moons, like Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune planetary system itself up with an asteroid belt (rings).

Image work of the different plane of the rings

Like Jupiter, Saturn releases more energy into space than it receives from the Sun The existence of a magnetic field was strongly demonstrated in 1979 and calculated its intensity as a thousand times that of the surrounding Earth about 20 times smaller than the Jovian.

The outer layers of the atmosphere are covered with what might be called a mist, which gives the album a rather bland setting. Also, quite often much of one hemisphere is covered by the rings so the best time to observe the details of the balloon is when they are singing. The most striking belts are found on both sides of the equator, which is always bright, the other belts are much less obvious. There are notable spots but relationships are rare, the most prominent white patch seen in this century was discovered on August 3, 1933. The wind speeds are higher in Saturn than in Jupiter. There are well-defined jet streams as it moves equatorial 500 meters per second, flows of the zonal winds east and west do not maintain a close relationship with the bright regions and dark belts.

The image shows a storm on Saturn

Colored cloud tend to remain in longitudinal broad banding may be the result of a mixture of methane, ammonia and possibly sulfur. The temperature does not differ much in Ecuador regarding the poles. As we said the rings were discovered by Huygens in 1656, Cassini separation that divides the rings A and B was detected in 1675. Encke's division in ring A was discovered in 1836 and the C ring, the crepe or dark ring was recognized in 1850. The B ring is the brightest particularly on the outside while the C is almost transparent.

Even the space probes "Traveler" passed close enough to photograph a single particle of the ring. The bands are composed of fragments of matter as icy snowballs little compact. A dye slightly dirty shows small amounts of material rocky areas could indicate traces of red iron oxide. The fragments of the ring would not reach combined to form a body of 320 kilometers in diameter.

Diagram showing the arrangement of the rings of Saturn.

The Cassini spacecraft has passed another important stage of its journey to Saturn. On day 2, the engine powered craft for about 90 minutes, standing in the specified path to a second meeting with Venus in June 1999. Communication with the vehicle during the maneuver was carried out by the antennas of NASA on the outskirts of Madrid. The results were satisfactory: slowed the progress of the probe 67,860 km / 66,240 km / h. This will see Venus at an angle that Maximize the gravity assist. The next time you use Cassini for so long the engine will be to enter orbit around Saturn, in June 2004.

Data:

120,600 km diameter Diam / Earth 9.5 Earth / Earth 95.1 0.69 Density Gravity / Land 1.08 Ecuador inclination to the plane of the planet's orbit 27 degrees sidereal rotation period in days, hours, minutes and seconds 10 hours 39 minutes , 24 seconds Distance to Sun in million km Minimum: 1,347 / Max: 1,507 / Media: 1,427 Distance to the sun in AU 9.55 Inclination of the plane of the planet's orbit with respect to land 2 ° 30 ' sidereal period of revolution Years, Days and Hours 29 Years / 167 Days Number of satellites (the most important) 23