The ‘Planet with Rings’ should be a new definition of ‘Beauty’. The Last visible planet to our naked eyes has some remarkable features making it a unique planet in our solar system.
A bit of History
The planet is named after a Roman god of agriculture. Galileo Galilei first observed Saturn with his telescope in 1610 and assumed this planet had 2 large moons close to it(These were the Rings). His second observation confused him even more as the moons disappeared(He was looking parallel to the plane of the rings this time). He finally interpreted his third observation after 2 years to be some form of arms around the Planet.
Later in the Year 1959, Christiaan Huygens settled the mystery with the help of improved optics in his telescope correcting Galileo that the moons he observed were actually a ‘system of rings’ around the planet.
Saturn’s Place in Solar System
It is the second-largest planet in our solar system after Jupiter. It revolves around the Sun every 29.4 Earth years. (10756 days on earth) and its average orbit distance from Sun is 1.4 billion km. At this distance, light from our star takes about 80 minutes to reach the planet. A day on Saturn is very short as it completes one rotation every 10.7 hours. This rotation speed is the reason for its Oblate spherical shape with a 10% difference in equatorial and polar radius. Saturn is tilted on its axis of rotation by about 27 degrees and approximately every 15 years, Saturns rings and Earth are in the same plane making them invisible to observers here on Earth.
What is it made of?
The atmosphere of Saturn is mostly composed of Hydrogen(96%) and Helium(3.2%) with trace amounts of hydrocarbons such as acetylene, ethane, propane, methane providing it a yellowish-brown colour.
As we move deeper into Saturn’s atmosphere, the density, and pressure rise, and the core of the planet is believed to have hydrogen in the metal form under such extreme conditions. The scientist also estimate the core to be denser than Earth and 9 - 22 times the mass of our planet. The core is so hot that it radiates 2.5 times the energy into space than it receives from the Sun.
The Beautiful Rings
There are a total of 10 distinguished rings around Saturn. Made of mostly of solid water ice and some amount of dust particles. The particle sizes in the rings vary from micrometers to meters. A shepherd moon is also observed in the rings of Saturn. 1
Following are the Rings of Saturn from Innermost to outermost:
D ring: With a width of 7,500 km, it is a very faint and the innermost ring of Saturn.
C Ring: Discovered in 1850, it is 17,500 km wide.
B Ring: The brightest and widest of inner main rings with a width of 25,500 km. It blocks over 99% of the light passing through it.
A Ring: It is the outermost bright ring of Saturn with a width of 14,600 km.
F Ring: Discovered in 1979, it is the most active ring of the planet with shepherd moon ‘Prometheus’ creating spiral knots at the edge of the ring as it collides and attracts the particles with its own gravity.
Janus/Epimetheus Ring: 5000 km of width and is occupied by the inner satellites Janus and Epimetheus.
G Ring: A thin and faint ring with a width of 9000 km between F ring and beginning of E ring.
Pallene Ring: Faint, dust ring sharing the orbit of Saturn’s natural satellite(Pallene). About the width of 2500 km.
E RIng: Extremely wide, and thick(2000km) ring unlike other thin rings of Saturn. The Ring is distributed between the orbits of Mimas and Titan.
Phoebe Ring: Virtually Invisible ring discovered by Spitzer Space Telescope in October 2009.
Fun Facts
About 2 tons of Saturn’s mass comes from Earth. Cassini spacecraft was intentionally vaporized into Saturn’s atmosphere.
Saturn has a total of 82 moons, 53 Known, and 29 awaiting confirmation.
Nine Earth-sized planets can fit into Saturn’s diameter side by side (excluding its Rings).
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