How did Galileo discover Saturn?
In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was the first to gaze at Saturn through a telescope. To his surprise, he saw a pair of objects on either side of the planet. He sketched them as separate spheres and wrote that Saturn appeared to be triple-bodied.
Does Saturn have any distinguishing?
Adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets, Saturn is unique among the planets. It is not the only planet to have rings – made of chunks of ice and rock – but none are as spectacular or as complicated as Saturn’s. Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium.
Are Saturn’s rings connected to Saturn?
The rings were named in the order they were discovered. The first ring discovered was named the A ring, but it is not the ring closest to or farthest from Saturn. They circle around Saturn at very high speeds. A closer look shows that each large ring is made up of many small rings.
Can Saturn hold water?
Yes, if you could find a big enough body of water for it to float on. Saturn is very large and is the second largest planet in the Solar System. However, it is made up mostly of gas and is less dense than water. Since it is lighter than water, it can float on water.
What are some unique features of Saturn?
A unique feature of Saturn is that it is the least dense planet in the Solar System. Although Saturn may have a dense, solid core, the large gaseous outer layer of the planet makes its average density a mere 687 kg/m3. As result, Saturn is lighter than water.
Can we live on Saturn?
While planet Saturn is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Satellites like Enceladus and Titan, home to internal oceans, could possibly support life.
What do we know about the Rings of Saturn?
There are many unanswered questions regarding the rings of Saturn, despite the fact that astronomers have been studying them for many years Image credit: Public domain Voyager also noticed something strange about Saturn’s rings as it flew past. One of its darker bands, the B ring, showed radial lines going through it like spokes on a bicycle wheel.
Why are there strange marks on the surface of Saturn?
Some scientists think they may be a result of Saturn’s magnetic field, while others believe it could be the result of lightning storms in the planet’s atmosphere. One of the goals of the “solstice extension” of the Cassini mission is to help scientists determine what the most likely cause of these unusual marks is.
What was the hexagonal cloud formation on Saturn?
In the 1980’s Voyager sent images of a strange hexagonal cloud formation around the northern pole of Saturn. Firstly it was assumed this was a one-time thing, a coincidental short-lived accident, but these thoughts were quickly disregarded when additional pictures of the geometric fog were taken by NASA’s Cassini mission more recently.
Why are the Rings of Saturn called Shepherd Moons?
The planet Saturn is easily identifiable by it’s ring structures. At over 270,000 km wide, these majestic bands are held in place by ‘shepherd’ moons, called as such because their gravitational pull ‘herds’ dust and fragments of space rocks into the rings we can see.