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Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, is the second largest of nine planets and one of the most interesting in our Solar System. ... Saturn was first discovered by Galileo in 1610 by using one of the first telescopes. ... Saturn is one of the most beautiful sites in our Solar System with its spectacular ring system. Of all the planets Saturn has the most moons or satellites with a total of thirty-one, thirteen of those are newly discovered and still unnamed today. ... Even though Saturn is not unique as it shares similarities with the other gas planets of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, like the rings, it still has various unique differences in its own right.
Saturn is one of the outer planets, located between Jupiter and Uranus. ... Saturn’s orbit is nearly like a circle and since Saturn is so far away from the sun it take a very long time for it to orbit the sun. ... Due to Saturn’s light weight and fast rotation it causes it to spread out, or oblate, its center, when viewed through a small telescope, looks visibly flattened. ... 108,728 km); the other gas planets also oblate, but not as much as Saturn does. Also because of its fast rotation it is concluded that the winds of Saturn’s equator go as fast as 1060 mph.
Saturn being the second largest planet, as Jupiter is the first, is around seventy-two thousand miles in diameter at its equator (120,536 km), almost ten times the size of Earth. ... In spite of its large size, Saturn weighs very little. ... Saturn consist of around 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, like the planet Jupiter but much less dense, and also has methane, ammonia, ethane, acetylene
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and phosphine, and with traces of various ices. ...
Since Saturn is a gas planet it does not have a solid surface where a spacecraft could land. ... The clouds that are seen when looking at Saturn are just the top layer of a very deep layer that covers the center of liquid hydrogen. ... The atmosphere of Saturn has weak bonds and there is a high haze, perhaps composed of crystals of ammonia ice, above the clouds. ... The motions in the interior contribute in a very special way to the development of the powerful and extensive magnetosphere of Saturn, and this heat that is generated within Saturn contributes to the unusual motions of the atmosphere. ... At the center of Saturn, the core is thought to have a temperature close to 15,000° C.
The dramatic appearance of Saturn stems mainly from the spectacular rings. ... Early observations of Saturn were complicated by the fact that the Earth passes through the plane of Saturns rings every few years as Saturn moves in its orbit, therefore a low resolution image of Saturn changes drastically. ... There are dark spots in some places on the rings and in the past have been mistaken for some of Saturn’s moons and one of the moons is thought to have given particles to one of the rings and they orbit together. The rings are visible from Earth and they start from the top of Saturn’s atmosphere to well beyond the orbits of its closest moons, about a distance of 84,650 miles (136,200 km) from the center of Saturn. ... The rings might have resulted when a moon or a passing body ventured too close to Saturn and then could have been torn apart by great tidal forces on its surface and in its interior. ... Voyager confirmed the existence of puzzling radial in homogeneities in the B ring called “spokes”, their nature remains a mystery but could have something to do with Saturn’s magnetic field. ...
There were only eighteen known moons that were orbiting Saturn, then in the year 2000 thirteen more moons were discovered, but still remain unnamed. The diameters of Saturn’s moons range from 20 to 5150 km. ... The five largest known Saturn moons are Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea. ... The satellite is about 500 km (310 mi) in diameter and is the brightest surface of any of Saturn’s satellites. ... Dione’s, the fourth large moon of Saturn, surface is believed to be 40% rock material and it has many craters that have been caused by cosmic debris. It is the heaviest or densest moon of Saturn and was discovered in 1684 by Cassini and named after the mother of Venus.
Approximate Word count = 3594
Approximate Pages = 14.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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