GROUP 6

presents

SATURN(The Lord

of the Rings)

Who discovered Saturn? Saturn, named after the Roman god

of the same name, is the Solar System’s second largest planet. In Roman mythology, Saturn is the father of Zeus (Uranus, the planet after it, is the father of Saturn in the same mythology). It was also part of the five classical planets—planets that were known during ancient times due to its visibility from the Earth.   Babylonian and Hindu astrologers were already recording the movement of the planet way before the existence of Nicolas Copernicus’ theory regarding the Solar System and Galileo Galilee’s telescope. Still, it was these two who proved that Saturn is part of the Solar System as a planet, something similar to Earth (which, in turn, isn’t the center of the universe as was previously believed).

People behind other Saturn discoveries include Christian Huygens, Giovanni Domenico, and William Herschel. Huygens discovered Titan, a Saturn moon. Domenico discovered four other moons of the planet namely, Dione, Iapetus, Rhea, and Tethys. Herschel discovered two other moons: Enceladus and Mimas. Herschel also discovered Uranus, the planet after Saturn. William Henry Pickering, an American astronomer, discovered Phoebe and a British team of astrologers discovered Hyperion. The tenth moon, Janus, was discovered by French astronomer Audouin Doulfus. Previously, the tenth moon was believed to be Themis, also discovered by Pickering.

DISCOVERy

DISCOVERy

Saturn is perhaps one of the distinguishable planets in the solar system, thanks to its every prominent ring system. The sixth planet (if distinguished from the sun) and also largest planet in the solar system next to Jupiter, it is one of the four gas giant planets, with Neptune, Jupiter, and Uranus as the other three. The planet is actually named after Roman god Saturn, the god of agriculture and harvest. Saturn has a Greek god equivalent—Cronos, Zeus’ Titan father. According to Greek mythology, Cronos served as the world’s ruler before Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus overthrew him.

Basically, no one really knows when or who, to be exact—discovered this solar system gas giant. Saturn has been known to exist ever since the prehistoric times. Of the planets to be first discovered, Saturn is the farthest. The distance gives Saturn the kind of mystique and mystery that made its way to numerous mythologies, even beyond the Roman and Greek ones. Saturn, for instance, played a huge part in ancient Asian cultures in Japan and China and Hindu and Babylonian astrology.

DISCOVERy

Further inquiries to the specifics of Saturn, however, took time. It was only during the 1600s when Galileo discovered that Saturn had rings, although he wrongly hypothesized that these were moons, Christian Huygens discovered that the “moons” were actually rings and that the planet had an actual moon. Later, four other Saturn moons were discovered by Giovanni Domenico. New discoveries were further fleshed out until the early 1940s.

DISCOVERy

 Saturn is made up of mostly hydrogen. In fact, this element composes 96% of the planet whilst the remaining 3% is made up of helium and the remaining 1% would be trace amounts of various other chemicals. Scientists believe that this composition matches the primordial elements that were already present during the formation of our Solar System.

What is

SaturnMadeOf?

Saturn is composed of 96% hydrogen, 3% helium, and 1% various trace elements that include methane, ammonia, ethane, and hydrogen deuteride. Several of these gases can be found in gas, liquid, and molten states as you descend into the planet.

Just like the other planets, Saturn can be divided into different layers as you descend further down into the planet. The topmost part would be the cloud layer. This is made up of ammonia crystals and right below the clouds are water and ammonium hydro-sulfide. Underneath this cloud layer, pressures can rise so much that it reaches the point wherein hydrogen is compressed and turned into liquid nitrogen. Then this turns into metallic hydrogen. Astronomers believe that the interior of Saturn is actually composed of rock and metal elements that sank down to its center during the formation of the planet itself.

What is

SaturnMadeOf?

Hydrogen Gas

liquid

Rocky centre

What is

SaturnMadeOf?

The planet’s atmosphere may appear bland to most, although there are long-lived features that are quite distinct on it. Saturn also has one of the most prominent ring systems which are composed of ice particles as well as dust and rock debris. There are 61 known moons that orbit this planet. But there are also hundreds of moonlets weaving their way through the rings. In fact, one of Saturn’s moons, the Titan, is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only one in our Solar System that possesses a significant atmosphere.

What is

SaturnMadeOf?

The planet Saturn is said to be the second largest among the known planets, having a diameter of almost 75,000 miles. It is also considered as the sixth planet to orbit around the sun at a distance of about 885 million miles. For an orbit to be completed, a calculation of almost 28.5 years should be taken despite the fact that its rotation is just for over 10.5 hours. Considered as a gas giant, it is known for having no surface but a rocky inner core with a layer composing of liquid metallic hydrogen. A feature that is most striking in the planet Saturn is its ring system. Its ring system consists of a number of ice chunks in which sizes can be compared to dust particles estimated to be 10 meters big. The spaces in between these chunks are known to be large enough to enable probes to cross through them without any damage. It is said to have seven major rings and numerous smaller ringlets held by shepherd moons in place. The largest ring is known to be about 180,000 miles across.

WhatIs

ThePlanetLookLike?

When it comes to the planet’s number of moons, Saturn owns 60. The largest of its moons is referred to as Titan, which is bigger compared to that from Mercury with 3,200 miles in diameter. It contains within it thick nitrogen atmosphere. Based on researches and probing made for Saturn, it has been discovered that the planet has within it what can be viewed as river channels and shoreline. It can also be described as a surface full of rocks surrounded with an orange haze.

WhatIs

ThePlanetLookLike?

Saturn’s outer atmosphere is composed of 96.3% molecular hydrogen and 3.25% helium. The rest are made up of small amounts of acetylene, ammonia, phosphine, methane, and ethane. The clouds located at the upper part of Saturn are made up of ammonia crystals. The clouds located on the lower levels of the atmosphere are made off either h2o or ammonium hydrosulfide. Helium is notably deficient on Saturn. Saturn’s atmosphere forms a banded pattern. Saturn’s winds are one of the fastest in the Solar System. According to the satellite Voyager, the winds can go up to 500 m/s.

ATMOSPHERE

Long-lived ovals have been observed on Saturn’s atmosphere. The Hubble Space Telescope found a large white cloud close to the equator in 1991 which was not seen in previous Voyager orbits. This is has been given a nickname, “Great White Spot.” Such a storm occurs once every year in Saturn. Take note that one Saturn year is equivalent to 30 Earth years. The most famous storm happened on 1933. The next storm is said to occur in the year 2020.

The Cassini spacecraft brought back images of Saturn. The images show its northern hemisphere as being bright blue in color. This color cannot be seen on Earth because it is being blocked by its rings. Rayleigh scattering is said to be the cause of the blue color. The polar vortex of Saturn is warm. This is a unique feature of Saturn and no other planet exhibits something similar to this. This is the warmest part of Saturn.

A hexagon shaped cloud pattern has been seen around the north polar vortex. It is still unknown as to why it is shaped that way. Astronomers think that a standing-wave pattern in the atmosphere causes it to be in that shape but some think that the hexagon shape is a novel aurora.

TEMPERATURE

Saturn has long fascinated people because of the mystique of its rings, which circle the planet’s equator and make it one of the most visually beautiful sights in our Solar System. These rings are composed of bands of small water ice-coated particles and are 250,000 km wide but only as thin as a few tens of meters in some places. The origin of the rings remains unclear, although there are two main theories: that they are the remains of a destroyed moon or are remnants of the original nebular material from which Saturn was formed.

TEMPERATURE

Saturn is a gas giant, meaning it is mostly composed of an upper layer of gases such as molecular helium and hydrogen surrounding a hot rocky core. Because of this, although Saturn is 95 times larger than Earth, its density is only 0.7 that of water. Saturn’s atmosphere is composed of some 75% of hydrogen and 25% helium along with small amounts of other substances such as methane and water ice. The planet is surrounded by clouds, with the upper layer composed of ammonia ice clouds and where temperatures can reach as low as -250° C. Below this layer is a lower deck of ammonium hydro-sulfate clouds, with average temperatures rising to -70° C. The lowest layer is made up of water clouds, and mean temperatures here are at the freezing point of water – zero degrees Celsius.

TEMPERATURE

At the core, however, temperatures can reach as high as 11,700° C. Scientists believe that its great internal heat is due to the sinking of helium from the upper atmosphere through the liquid hydrogen at the interior. Like its neighbor Jupiter, Saturn also experiences powerful storms, although not as intense as those on Jupiter. Storms mostly appear around the bands that circle the planet, with winds at the equator reaching as fast as 1,800 km/hr, and can range for months or even years.

What makes Saturn huge is its atmosphere. Although it has a surface, it is not as solid as other planets. Saturn’s surface is so dense that the gravity on it is particularly very weak and is only 91% compared to that of Earth’s. It will not allow anyone to take a stroll on the planet. The pressure is very high that not only will freezing temperatures turn objects into solid ice but the high level of pressure will crush objects before it hits the surface.

SURFACE

SURFACE

Similar to Uranus, Saturn also has a fluid surface. The atmosphere of Saturn is visible through the telescope, the outer layer of gas. The atmosphere of the planet consists of gases such as hydrogen which makes up the atmosphere by 93% and helium which are the basic gases found on all giant gas planets. Saturn’s atmosphere has three layers of gas and these layers are determined by their temperature. The tropopose is the outer visible layer which is mostly composed of ammonia clouds. Closer to the planets’ surface is the cloud layer made up of ammonium hydro-sulfide clouds. And finally, the layer closest to the icy fluid surface of the planet is made up of clouds of water that drops below 0 temperatures.

The planet named after the Roman god Saturn, much like Jupiter also has a set of rings with objects orbiting the planet independently. Through a telescope, Saturn has four rings, sixty known moons and possibly unknown moonlets that orbit the planet within its rings. Dust and rocky space debris along with gases such as ammonia, acetylene, phosphine and methane, which are considered as trace elements, make up the bands and through the telescope can be viewed and sometimes even with the naked eye as it orbits near the Earth.

SURFACE

PROFILE

Mass (kg) : 5.69 x 1026

Diameter (km) : 120660Mean density (kg/m3) : 690Escape velocity (m/s) : 35600Average distance from Sun : 9.537 AU (1,426,725,400 km)Rotation period (length of day in Earth days) : 0.44 (10.2 Earth hours)Revolution period (length of year in Earth years) : 29.46Obliquity (tilt of axis degrees) : 26.7Orbit inclination (degrees) : 2.49Orbit eccentricity (deviation from circular) : 0.056Mean temperature (K) : 88 K (1 bar level)Visual geometric albedo (reflectivity) : 0.46Atmospheric components : 97% hydrogen, 3% helium, .05% methaneRings : Rings are 270,000 km in diameter, but only a few hundred meters thick. Particles are centimeters to decameters in size and are ice (some may be covered with ice); there are traces of silicate and carbon minerals. There are four main ring groups and three more faint, narrow ring groups separated by gaps called divisions.

Out of the four ringed planets in the solar system, Saturn has the most complex ring system. The materials that compose the Saturn rings are mostly water ice combined with chemicals and dust particles. The size of these water ice ranges from micrometers to a few meters. The first person to ever observe the Saturn rings is Galileo Galilei in 1610. However, with his limited technology, he wasn’t able to truly understand what he saw. It was in 1655 when Christian Huygens declared that there are disks surrounding the planet Saturn. It is commonly believed that the rings of Saturn are composed of a series of disks orbiting around the planet with gaps in between. Most of which are caused by Saturn’s inner moons while others have yet to be explained.

RINGSOfSATURN

The rings of Saturn are divided into 5 main groups: D ring, C ring, B ring, A ring and F ring.

D Ring – It is the ring closest to the planet and was discovered by the Voyager 1 in 1980. Within the D ring, three ringlets were seen: D73, D72 and D68. About two and a half decades after it was discovered, astronomers noticed that D72 moved closer to Saturn by about 200 kilometers and has grown much fainter. It is 7,500 kilometers wide.

C Ring – Is faint especially compared to the A and B rings. This is because it is composed of darker materials than the other rings. It was discovered in 1850 by four different astronomers; William and George Bond, William Dawes and Johann Galle. It is 17,500 kilometers wide.

RINGSOfSATURN

B Ring – It is the largest, brightest and has the most mass among Saturns rings. It is estimated that nearly all of the sunlight that passes through the B ring is reflected. Very little is known of the B ring with regard to its irregularity of its brightness and density. It is 25,500 kilometers wide.

A ring – There are 2 gaps within the A ring: Encke gap and Keeler gap. It is separated from the B ring by the Cassini Division and its boundary is near Atlas’ orbit.

F ring – It is the outermost ring of Saturn undergoing changes every hour. It is also the thinnest ring with an estimate 30 – 500 km in width.

RINGSOfSATURN

Saturn’s average distance from the Sun is 1,400,000,000 km. The average orbital speed of Saturn is 9.69 km/s. It takes the earth 365 days to orbit the sun, Saturn takes 10,759 Earth days (or about 29½ years), to revolve around the sun; a year on Saturn is equivalent to 29.5 Earth years.Saturn has an elliptical orbit and is inclined at 2.48°. The reason for Saturn not having a constant distance is it has an eccentricity of 0.056. This causes the distance between Saturn and the Sun to vary by 155,000,000 km between aphelion and perihelion. The aphelion is the most distant part of the planet along its orbital planet while the perihelion is the closest.

ORBIT

AndROTATION

Parts and features of Saturn that are visible to earth have different rates of rotation. This all depends on the latitude of the feature. There is different rotation periods assigned to different regions. The feature of Saturn known as System 1 rotates at a period of 10 hours and 14 minutes. This includes the Equatorial Zone. All the other latitude, known as System II has the same rotation period of 10 hours 39 minutes and 24 seconds. System III has been given the rotation period of 10 hours 39 minutes and 22.4 seconds. This data was taken from the radio emissions taken from the planet during the Voyager flybys. Measurements taken from the Pioneer, Voyager and Cassini probes gave Saturn’s rotation speed at 10 hours 32 minutes and 35 seconds. This is the latest measurement of the rotation of the planet to date. A day on Saturn will take anywhere from 10 hours 14 minutes to 10 hours 39 minutes, depending on the regions of rotation.

ORBIT

AndROTATION

There are 62 moons orbiting Saturn. The moons of Saturn vary not only in size but also in composition and shape. The largest of the moons of Saturn is the aptly named Titan, more than 5,000 km across and is bigger than Mercury.

There are 7 major moons of Saturn and the rest are grouped based on the mythology from which it is taken. Most of the minor moons of Saturn are less than 1 km across and are icy celestial bodies that closely resemble planetary rings.

NATURAL

SATELLITE

Major Moons of Saturn

•Titan – The largest of Saturn’s numerous natural satellites measuring 5,150 km across. The surface of Titan is mostly rocky materials and ice and its atmosphere is mostly composed of nitrogen, which could create a climate similar to that of ancient Earth. It is believed that Titan’s environment can nurture extraterrestrial microorganisms.

•Rhea – Named after the mother of the Olympian gods in Greek Mythology. It is the second largest moon of Saturn measuring 1,530 km across and is the 9th largest natural satellite in the solar system.

•Iapetus – With a diameter of 1,470 km, it is the 3rd largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1671. It has a distinct feature of having a bright and dark hemisphere.

NATURAL

SATELLITE

•Dione – The 4th largest moon of Saturn named after a vague character in Greek Mythology. It measures 1,122 km in diameter and is the 15th largest moon in the solar System. Despite its size, its mass exceeds all the moons smaller than itself combined.

•Thetys – Discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1684, this moon named after a titan in the Greek Mythology has a 1,070 km diameter. Like Dione and Rhea, the surface of Thetys is mostly icy.

•Enceladus – Discovered by William Herschel in 1789, it has a diameter of 500 kilometers. It has a very reflective surface and it reflects most of the sunlight that hits its surface.

•Mimas – Also discovered by William Herschel in 1789. It has a 400 km diameter and has low density that led scientists to believe it is mostly made of ice with very little percentage of rocks.

NATURAL

SATELLITE

The second largest planet in the solar system is Saturn. The diameter of the planet measures to about 74,898 miles. That is nine times bigger than the Earth’s diameter. A planet’s diameter is measured from the point of the atmosphere where the pressure is 1 bar. 1 bar is the pressure of Sea Level on Earth.

Saturn is the least dense of all the planets in the Solar System. Its density is only a tenth of Earth. If you were to weigh equal parts of the Earth and Saturn on the basis of Earth’s gravitational force you would find that Earth’s portion would weigh more than that of Saturn. 

MASS

andDENSITY

There is no specific density of Saturn as the numbers vary. These varying numbers are fairly close to each other at, 0.69 g/cm3, 0.7 g/cm and 0.75 g/cm3.This is fairly accurate data on the true density of Saturn. At 1 g/cm water is denser than Saturn. So if you find a big enough ocean to put Saturn in, Saturn would float. Other planets that are smaller than Saturn but has a larger density, such as Neptune, would sink. Size and density are in no way connected.

Saturn may have the lowest density but Saturn’s mass is greater than all the planets except for Jupiter. Saturn’s mass is 5.688e+26. Saturn’s gravity is a little bit higher than that of Earth. It is 7/100 more than that of Earth. If you are say a hundred pounds and you suddenly visit Saturn’s surface you will immediately gain seven pounds.

MASS

andDENSITY

1. Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest.

2. Saturn was the god of agriculture in Roman mythology. Saturn is also the father of Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods.

3. Saturn is flattened at the poles, due to a fast rotation on its axis.

4. Saturn has 62 known moons, fifty-three have been named. Most of them are small in size.

5. Names of some of Saturn’s moons: the largest is Titan, discovered in 1655; Tethys, Dione, Rhea, & Iapetus, discovered from 1671 to 1672; Mimas & Enceladus, discovered in 1789; and Hyperion, discovered in 1848.

6. A year on Saturn is equal to 29.5 Earth Years

7. Saturn is the only planet in our solar system that is less dense that water.

8. A day on Saturn is equal to 10 hours and 14 minutes in Earth days.

IMPORTANT

FACTS

9. Diameter of Saturn is 119,871 km (74,500 miles)

10. Saturn’s maximum distance from the Sun is 1.5 billion km (938 million miles)

11. Saturn’s minimum distance from Earth is 1.2 billion km (746 million miles)

12. Saturn has fourteen subdivisions of its rings, the widest is at 25,500 km, the B ring.13. Saturn’s rings are made primarily of “water ice” mixed with dust and other chemicals.

14. Saturn’s fame has been observed going back to ancient times, the Babylonians, Romans, Greek, Hindus, and many more ancient civilizations have taken great interest in studying this ringed planet.

15. If you weigh 100 lbs, your weight on Saturn would be 108 lbs. (multiply your actual weight by 1.08)

16. The temperature on Saturn by the clouds is at -274° F.

IMPORTANT

FACTS