1. Saturn
Jennifer Manning

2. Basic Information
6th Planet from the Sun: orbital distance of about 886 million miles
2nd largest planet: 72,367.4 miles in diameter
Synodic Period: years
Sidereal Period: years
Day on Saturn: 10.7 hours
53 moons
Rings!

3. Planet Composition Chemical Composition: Gas Giant
Mass: x kg
Atmospheric Composition:
96.3% molecular hydrogen
3.25% helium
Minor amounts of other gasses
Chemical Composition:
Viscous hydrogen and helium
Highly compressed, liquid metallic hydrogen
Outer core of ammonia, methane, and water
Solid inner core of iron and rocky material

4. Rings Originally mistaken as a “triple planet” by Galileo 1610
Corrected by Christiaan Huygens as rings 1655
Named alphabetically in order of discovery
Composes of ice and rock
Main rings are typically 30 ft thick
Cassian Division between A and B rings
Rings disappear depending on view

6. Cassini’s First D-Ring Crossing
May 28, 2017
Data from Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS)
Dust-sized particles strike the RPWS antennas and are vaporized into tiny clouds of plasma (electrically excited gas)
These explosions are converted into visible and audio formants for analysis

7. Titan Largest moon: 3,200 miles in diameter
Orbital Period: 15 days and 22 hours
Length of Day: 16 Earth days
Icy Moon
Only known moon in solar system to have substantial atmosphere
Only known place to have liquids on the surface other then Earth
Presence of ocean below icy ground of liquid water
Potential of Life?

8. Enceladus 313 miles in diameter Orbital Period: 32.9 hours
Length of Day: 32.9 hours
Icy Moon
Liquid water oceans beneath surface that spray from surface
Ice formed from these jets produce Saturn’s E ring
Potential for life?

9. Viewing Can be seen with the naked eye
Angular size: 14.5” to 20.1” (1⁰ = 3,600”)
Apparent magnitude: to 1.17
Telescope or binoculars of 25x to see rings
Telescope with 50x will shows rings as separate entity
Filters can be used to better enhance viewing

10. View this Year! Throughout October 2018 Saturn can be seen
Use Mars and Jupiter to find Saturn, located between them
Saturn will appear golden in color, and seen better with optical aid

11. Amateur telescopic view Robert Hooke 1666

12. Probes Pioneer 11 (1979) Voyager 1 (1980) Voyager 2 (1981)
Cassini-Huygens spacecraft ( )
Possible Future Missions:
NASA requested plans for a mission that include:
Atmospheric entry probe
Possible investigation of habitability and discovery of life on Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus

13. Sources https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/overview/
bearer.html
diagram.svg/2000px-Saturn_diagram.svg.png
planet-rings-and-moons/

14. Sources
venus-saturn-mercury
crossing/?category=planets_saturn
enceladus/

15. Questions?