Saturn
Slide 3 What is Saturn?
Saturn is the second biggest planet in the solar system with a mean radius of about 58, 232 km but it is the least dense planet in the solar system. It’s density is about 0.687 grams per cubic centimetre making it the only planet less dense than water. Saturn spins faster than any other planet except Jupiter, completing a rotation roughly every 10 and half hours. The rapid spinning causes Saturn to bulge at its equator and flatten at its poles making it the flattest of the planets. The planet is 13,000 km wider at its equator than between the poles. In Roman mythology Saturn was the father of Jupiter, King of the gods. This is interesting because Saturn and Jupiter are similar in so many respects, including size and composition. Saturn’s average distance from the sun is about 1.4 billion kilometers (9.54 AU). Its perihelion (closest approach to the sun) is about 1.3 billion km and its aphelion is about 1.5 billion km. The distance from earth is about 1.2 billion km.
Slide 4 How was Saturn discovered?
Saturn was first discovered by an Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. He first saw the Saturn’s rings in 1610 but was confused by its odd appearance. He described them as “handles” and later he thought of them as twin moons orbiting around Saturn. The image he was seeing wasn’t clear because he was using his …show more content…
homemade binoculars. He was still able to see Saturn with his poor quality binoculars because Saturn generates its own heat and light energy from the gravitational compression of the planet combined with the friction from large amounts of helium rain found within its atmosphere. It actually gives off more energy than it receives from the Sun. In 1659 a Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, observed Saturn with a much better telescope than Galileo’s. He discovered three new important facts about Saturn. He learned that Saturn is surrounded by a flat ring and that the ring does not touch the planet. He also noted that the rings is tipped compared to Earth’s orbit. In 1675 Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovered that the ring was actually two rings divided by a gap. This gap is now called the Cassini gap. Soon other astronomers discovered additional gaps in the rings. Saturn has been visited by four spacecrafts including Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and 2 and Cassini Mission.
Slide 5 What is Saturn composed of?
Saturn is a gas giant mainly composed of the first two elements of the periodic table, hydrogen and helium. It is composed of about 96% hydrogen, 3% helium and minor amounts of methane, ammonia, ethane, and water ice aerosols. Like Jupiter, Saturn is suspected to have a core with rock and metal elements that is surrounded by hydrogen and helium. The core is believed to be 9 to 22 times the mass of Earth. The centre core would be surrounded by the liquid metallic hydrogen and then the liquid hydrogen. At higher pressures, below the determined surface hydrogen on Saturn becomes liquid which is this layer. As the hydrogen moves inward toward the center of the planet, the increased pressure causes liquified gases to become metallic hydrogen which is this layer. The pale yellow color we see is the upper atmosphere which contains ammonia crystals. Saturn has a magnetosphere large enough to contain the entire planet its rings. Saturn’s magnetic field is about 578 times as powerful as Earth’s. The surface gravity of Saturn isn’t much different Earth’s. It is about 107% of the surface gravity on Earth, so if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 107 pounds on Saturn.
Slide 6 What are the rings around Saturn?
Yeah, this is what some scientist believed happen when the rings were created. Others believe that the rings were the left out particles when Saturn itself was created. Saturn’s ring are made up of countless water-ice particles mixed with dust and rock fragments. Most are around 1 cm to 5 metres but few particles reach up to kilometer in size. The rings are about 250, 000 km or more in diameter but they’re less than one kilometer thick. The rings are very wide but very thin compared to the Saturn’s size. The ring’s full width from one side to the other would be about 70 percent that of the distance between Earth and the Moon. There are seven broad classifications among the rings, which are named A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, each named in the order it was discovered. The most visible rings from Earth are A, B and C. C is pretty faint compared to A and B. B is the widest, roughly about 26 000km wide. Each ring is a collection of thousands of ringlets. There are always gaps in between the rings, the biggest one is between rings A and B and is called the Cassini division which is about 5000 km across. The rings stay in their place by the gravitational force of Saturn and the moons. The Cassini division exist because of the gravitational field of the moon Mimas.
Slide 7 Does Saturn have any moons?
Saturn has 63 moons that has been officially identified and 9 are still to be named. Scientist believe there are lots of more moon to be identified in the future. All the moons are very unique and different. Mimas, the moon that controls the Cassini division, suffered a massive impact long ago that created a single huge creator. The biggest moon that Saturn has is Titan, which is also the second largest moon in our solar system. Titan has a substantial atmosphere and it’s thicker than air on Earth but it’s mostly composed of nitrogen. Enceladus is a smaller, icy moon about 500km across. This moon is interesting because it is incredibly shiny, reflecting all the light that hits it. A strong indicator it’s covered in water ice. In 2005 Cassini also spotted active geysers of water spewing from the south pole of Enceladus. Shepherd moons are small moons that are responsible for defining most of Saturn’s rings. These moons are what makes the Saturn’s rings stay in their orbit. The gravitational fields keep the ring particles from straying, much like a shepherd keeping sheep from wandering away from the flock. A great example of shepherd moon is the picture up here. This is the F ring located just outside the A ring. It is very narrow, just a few hundred kilometres across. It’s kept this way by two moons Prometheus and Pandora’s gravitational field. The orbit just inside and outside the ring shown in the picture. This makes the ring orbit just between the two moons.
Conclusion
Going back to my main question we can see that the composition affects its density because it is composed of only gases, hydrogen and helium
Because of the low density, it makes the planet spins fast, making it flat.
Saturn produces its only heat and light energy by the friction of the helium rain which can be found in the atmosphere. It has a pale yellow colour because of the ammonia crystals which can be found in the outer atmosphere as well. It has a low surface gravity because it does not have a solid surface like Earth. Its rings stay in orbit by the gravitational force given by Saturn and its
moons
Saturn is the second biggest planet in the solar system with a mean radius of about 58, 232 km but it is the least dense planet in the solar system. It’s density is about 0.687 grams per cubic centimetre making it the only planet less dense than water. Saturn spins faster than any other planet except Jupiter, completing a rotation roughly every 10 and half hours. The rapid spinning causes Saturn to bulge at its equator and flatten at its poles making it the flattest of the planets. The planet is 13,000 km wider at its equator than between the poles. In Roman mythology Saturn was the father of Jupiter, King of the gods. This is interesting because Saturn and Jupiter are similar in so many respects, including size and composition. Saturn’s average distance from the sun is about 1.4 billion kilometers (9.54 AU). Its perihelion (closest approach to the sun) is about 1.3 billion km and its aphelion is about 1.5 billion km. The distance from earth is about 1.2 billion km.
Slide 4 How was Saturn discovered?
Saturn was first discovered by an Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. He first saw the Saturn’s rings in 1610 but was confused by its odd appearance. He described them as “handles” and later he thought of them as twin moons orbiting around Saturn. The image he was seeing wasn’t clear because he was using his …show more content…
homemade binoculars. He was still able to see Saturn with his poor quality binoculars because Saturn generates its own heat and light energy from the gravitational compression of the planet combined with the friction from large amounts of helium rain found within its atmosphere. It actually gives off more energy than it receives from the Sun. In 1659 a Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, observed Saturn with a much better telescope than Galileo’s. He discovered three new important facts about Saturn. He learned that Saturn is surrounded by a flat ring and that the ring does not touch the planet. He also noted that the rings is tipped compared to Earth’s orbit. In 1675 Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovered that the ring was actually two rings divided by a gap. This gap is now called the Cassini gap. Soon other astronomers discovered additional gaps in the rings. Saturn has been visited by four spacecrafts including Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and 2 and Cassini Mission.
Slide 5 What is Saturn composed of?
Saturn is a gas giant mainly composed of the first two elements of the periodic table, hydrogen and helium. It is composed of about 96% hydrogen, 3% helium and minor amounts of methane, ammonia, ethane, and water ice aerosols. Like Jupiter, Saturn is suspected to have a core with rock and metal elements that is surrounded by hydrogen and helium. The core is believed to be 9 to 22 times the mass of Earth. The centre core would be surrounded by the liquid metallic hydrogen and then the liquid hydrogen. At higher pressures, below the determined surface hydrogen on Saturn becomes liquid which is this layer. As the hydrogen moves inward toward the center of the planet, the increased pressure causes liquified gases to become metallic hydrogen which is this layer. The pale yellow color we see is the upper atmosphere which contains ammonia crystals. Saturn has a magnetosphere large enough to contain the entire planet its rings. Saturn’s magnetic field is about 578 times as powerful as Earth’s. The surface gravity of Saturn isn’t much different Earth’s. It is about 107% of the surface gravity on Earth, so if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 107 pounds on Saturn.
Slide 6 What are the rings around Saturn?
Yeah, this is what some scientist believed happen when the rings were created. Others believe that the rings were the left out particles when Saturn itself was created. Saturn’s ring are made up of countless water-ice particles mixed with dust and rock fragments. Most are around 1 cm to 5 metres but few particles reach up to kilometer in size. The rings are about 250, 000 km or more in diameter but they’re less than one kilometer thick. The rings are very wide but very thin compared to the Saturn’s size. The ring’s full width from one side to the other would be about 70 percent that of the distance between Earth and the Moon. There are seven broad classifications among the rings, which are named A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, each named in the order it was discovered. The most visible rings from Earth are A, B and C. C is pretty faint compared to A and B. B is the widest, roughly about 26 000km wide. Each ring is a collection of thousands of ringlets. There are always gaps in between the rings, the biggest one is between rings A and B and is called the Cassini division which is about 5000 km across. The rings stay in their place by the gravitational force of Saturn and the moons. The Cassini division exist because of the gravitational field of the moon Mimas.
Slide 7 Does Saturn have any moons?
Saturn has 63 moons that has been officially identified and 9 are still to be named. Scientist believe there are lots of more moon to be identified in the future. All the moons are very unique and different. Mimas, the moon that controls the Cassini division, suffered a massive impact long ago that created a single huge creator. The biggest moon that Saturn has is Titan, which is also the second largest moon in our solar system. Titan has a substantial atmosphere and it’s thicker than air on Earth but it’s mostly composed of nitrogen. Enceladus is a smaller, icy moon about 500km across. This moon is interesting because it is incredibly shiny, reflecting all the light that hits it. A strong indicator it’s covered in water ice. In 2005 Cassini also spotted active geysers of water spewing from the south pole of Enceladus. Shepherd moons are small moons that are responsible for defining most of Saturn’s rings. These moons are what makes the Saturn’s rings stay in their orbit. The gravitational fields keep the ring particles from straying, much like a shepherd keeping sheep from wandering away from the flock. A great example of shepherd moon is the picture up here. This is the F ring located just outside the A ring. It is very narrow, just a few hundred kilometres across. It’s kept this way by two moons Prometheus and Pandora’s gravitational field. The orbit just inside and outside the ring shown in the picture. This makes the ring orbit just between the two moons.
Conclusion
Going back to my main question we can see that the composition affects its density because it is composed of only gases, hydrogen and helium
Because of the low density, it makes the planet spins fast, making it flat.
Saturn produces its only heat and light energy by the friction of the helium rain which can be found in the atmosphere. It has a pale yellow colour because of the ammonia crystals which can be found in the outer atmosphere as well. It has a low surface gravity because it does not have a solid surface like Earth. Its rings stay in orbit by the gravitational force given by Saturn and its
moons