News tagged with saturn
Image: Saturn's rings and Enceladus
(PhysOrg.com) -- A crescent Enceladus appears with Saturn’s rings in this Cassini spacecraft view of the moon.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Feb 08, 2012 |
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Image: Saturn and its moon Dione
(PhysOrg.com) -- Saturn and Dione appear askew in this Cassini spacecraft view, with the north poles rotated to the right, as if they were threaded along on the thin diagonal line of the planet's rings.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Feb 03, 2012 |
3.3 / 5 (3) |
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Looks like we’re still looking for earthly life forms on other planets
In late 2010, NASA set the Internet buzzing when it called a press conference to discuss an astrobiological finding that would impact the search for extraterrestrial life. Many speculated that some primitive ...
Feb 02, 2012 |
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The Rings of Pluto?
Like other bodies in the outer Solar System, Pluto may have have rings orbiting it. Finding these rings could be important for the safety of NASA's New Horizons mission - currently en route to the tiny world.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 25, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (3) |
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Putting an airplane on a distant moon
(PhysOrg.com) -- In addition to its rivers, oceans, mountains, sand dunes and winds, Saturn’s moon Titan may someday share another similarity with Earth: airplanes.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 25, 2012 |
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Image: Closest Dione flyby
(PhysOrg.com) -- Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 23, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
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Voyager instrument cooling after heater turned off
(PhysOrg.com) -- In order to reduce power consumption, mission managers have turned off a heater on part of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, dropping the temperature of its ultraviolet spectrometer instrument ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 18, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (18) |
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New computer model shows Titan atmosphere more Earth-like than thought
(PhysOrg.com) -- Two scientists from the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris have built a computer model that simulates the atmosphere on Titan, one of Saturn’s sixty two moons, and ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 16, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (12) |
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Scientists discover a Saturn-like ring system eclipsing a sun-like star
A team of astrophysicists from the University of Rochester and Europe has discovered a ring system in the constellation Centaurus that invites comparisons to Saturn.
Jan 11, 2012 |
5 / 5 (5) |
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Researchers build computer model that explains lakes and storms on Saturn's moon Titan
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is an intriguing, alien world that's covered in a thick atmosphere with abundant methane. With an average surface temperature of a brisk -297 degrees Fahrenheit (about 90 kelvins) ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 04, 2012 |
4 / 5 (7) |
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Cassini data shows Saturn moon may affect planet's magnetosphere
Scientists have been puzzled by periodic bursts of radiation, known as the Saturn kilometric radiation (SKR), that occur in the planet's magnetosphere. These emissions occur at a rate that is close to, but ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 31, 2011 |
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Portraits of moons captured by Cassini
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its closest-ever pass over Saturn's moon Dione on Monday, Dec. 12, slaloming its way through the Saturn system on its way to tomorrow's close ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 13, 2011 |
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The methane habitable zone
In the search for life elsewhere, many studies focus on finding liquid water. But what if life could exist with some other solvent? Saturn’s smoggy moon Titan makes scientists question the possibilities ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 11, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (16) |
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The hazy history of Titan's air
What rocky moon has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Earth-like weather patterns and geology, liquid hydrocarbon seas and a relatively good chance to support life? The answer is Titan, the fascinating moon of Saturn.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Oct 13, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (7) |
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Titanic Jigsaw Challenge: Piecing together a global colour map of Saturn’s largest moon
An international team led by the University of Nantes has pieced together images gathered over six years by the Cassini mission to create a global mosaic of the surface of Titan. The global maps and animations ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Oct 04, 2011 |
5 / 5 (5) |
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Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian, meaning "Jupiter-like", planets.
Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn (that became the namesake of Saturday), equated to the Greek Kronos (the Titan father of Zeus) the Babylonian Ninurta and to the Hindu Shani. Saturn's symbol represents the god's sickle (Unicode: ♄).
The planet Saturn is composed of hydrogen, with small proportions of helium and trace elements. The interior consists of a small core of rock and ice, surrounded by a thick layer of metallic hydrogen and a gaseous outer layer. The outer atmosphere is generally bland in appearance, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h, significantly faster than those on Jupiter. Saturn has a planetary magnetic field intermediate in strength between that of Earth and the more powerful field around Jupiter.
Saturn has a prominent system of rings, consisting mostly of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Sixty-one known moons orbit the planet, not counting hundreds of "moonlets" within the rings. Titan, Saturn's largest and the Solar System's second largest moon (after Jupiter's Ganymede), is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the Solar System to possess a significant atmosphere.
For more information about Saturn, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
