As we curiously looked out of the spaceship window, we saw a massive planet.We were 5000 kilometers away from it, yet its lively colors of bursting orange, bright yellow, with splashes of hot red appeared to be only 5 feet away. It's lively spiral of rings encombers this spectacular planet.
Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest planet in the solar system.It's equatorial diameter is 119,300 km. Much of the information about Saturn is due to the explorations in 1980-1981 with "Voyager".Visibly the poles of Saturn are flatten. Saturn has a very fast rotation on its axis. A day on Saturn is 10hrs and 39mins. long. It takes 29.5 earth years to revolve around the sun. The atmosphere is composed primarily of hydrogen with small amounts of helium and methane.It's the only planet less dense than water(about 30% less.)The wind blows at high speeds near the equator which reaches velocities of 500 m/s. It blows in mostly easterly directions. At latitudes greater than 35 degrees, winds alternate east and west as latitude increases.Saturn has a beautiful asortment of rings. The ring are split into various parts that include A and B rings a fainter C ring, these systems have various gaps between them. Giovanni Cassini discovered this division in 1675.The Encke Division is named after Johann Encke who discovered it in 1837. The origin of the rings are unknown but it is thought that the rings may have formed from larger moons that were shattered by impacts of comets and meteriods.The rings are composed of great amounts of water mainly from iceburgs and snowballs.
Its'rings aare composed of mainly iceburgs and snowballs. Saturnd rings range from a few centimeters to a meter in size. The structure of the rings are due to gravity and the effects of near by sattellites. Saturn has eighteen confirmed moons, this is the largest number of sattellites of any planet in the solar system. Using the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 scientist sited four objects which might be new moons. Solar storms also occur on Saturn. They are generated by the upwelling of warmer air, similiar to a terrestrial thunder head. The east west extent of the storm is equal to the diameter.
Auroras occur on Saturn and are produced and charged particles precipating from the magnetosphere that collide with atmoshperic gases. As a result of this bombardment, Saturns gases glow at far ultraviolet wavelengths. These wavelengths are absorbed by earths atmosphere and can only be observed at space-based telescopes.
This was a great experience for us was it for you? We hoped you enjoyed yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!
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