Saturn: just the basic facts Saturn, like Jupiter, is made
mostly of hydrogen and helium. Winds in the upper atmosphere reach
500 meters per second in the equatorial region. In contrast, the
strongest hurricane-force winds on Earth top out at about 110
meters (360 feet) per second.
Slide 9
Saturn: just the basic facts These super-fast winds, combined
with heat rising from within the planet's interior, cause the
yellow and gold bands visible in the atmosphere. Saturns day length
is 10.7 hours. Saturns year is 29.7 Earth years. It has an escape
velocity of over 80,000 miles per hour (Earths is 25,000
miles/hour).
Slide 10
Saturn: just the basic facts
568,319,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg In Sci. Notation: 5.6832 x
10 26 kg Earths mass: 5.972 X 10 24 kg. Its volume is 755 times
greater than that of Earth. Distance from the sun: 1.43 billion km,
or 9.58 AU. Surface Gravity if you weigh 100 lbs on Earth, you
would weigh 107 lbs on Saturn.
Slide 11
Saturns Rings In the early 1980s, Voyager 1 & 2 revealed
that Saturn's rings are made mostly of water ice from fine grains
to chunks as large as a house. Also, they imaged "braided" rings,
ringlets, and "spokes. dark features in the rings that form and
initially circle the planet at different rates from that of the
surrounding ring material.
Slide 12
The Rings Saturn and several of its moons hold the whole jumble
together in a powerful gravitational grip. Moons like Pan, Atlas
and Pandora are called shepherd moons - they herd particles into
Saturn's rings. The moons also create gaps and twisting wave
patterns.
Slide 13
Cassini Composite of Saturns Rings
Slide 14
The Rings Saturn's ring system extends hundreds of thousands of
kilometers from the planet, yet the vertical height is typically
about only 10 meters (30 feet) in the main rings. This is a JPL
illustration of Saturns Rings
Slide 15
The Rings During Saturn's 2009 autumnal equinox, when sunlight
illuminated the rings edge-on, Cassini spacecraft images showed
vertical formations in some of the rings. particles seem to pile up
in bumps or ridges more than 3 kilometers (2 miles) tall.
Slide 16
Why Study Saturns Rings? Why are Saturns rings more than just
beautiful? According to a number of things I read, the rings are
kind of like a model of the early solar system. "The small moons
embedded in the rings close into Saturn interact with the rings,
[which] is similar to the interactions that likely occurred in the
early solar system itself.
Slide 17
Why Study Saturns Rings? "The moons sweep up and sculpt the
rings and release ring material. They create waves and establish
resonances in the rings. And so studying the rings is like studying
the early solar system and the formation of the planets. Dr. Amanda
Hendrix, a planetary scientist with NASA.
Slide 18
Titan Saturn has 53 known moons and Titan is by far the
largest. With an equatorial radius of 2,575 km (1,600 miles), Titan
is the second largest moon in our solar system. It is larger than
Mercury and only Jupiters moon Ganymede is larger (slightly
larger).
Slide 19
Slide 20
Titans Atmosphere The temperature at Titan's surface is about -
289 degrees Fahrenheit (-178 degrees Celsius). Titan is of great
interest because it has clouds and a thick atmosphere, which
extends farther out into space than Earths. Most of its atmosphere
is Nitrogen (like Earths) with methane the second most common
substance.
Slide 21
Titans Hydrocarbons Titan and Earth are the only two objects in
our solar system with large amounts of organic compounds. Titan's
organic materials, including deposits of methane and other
hydrocarbons, are as large as some of the Great Lakes Earths
hydrocarbons have been cycled through living organisms, Titans
havent (pristine).
Slide 22
Titans Smog Problem Due to Titans gaseous hydrocarbons, it has
smog. Sunlight, like here on Earth, breaks hydrocarbon compounds
into pieces that react with each other and nitrogen to form organic
compounds. Those include ethane, acetylene, hydrogen cyanide,
cyanoacetylene and other familiar terrestrial chemicals (that we
consider serious air polluntants).
Slide 23
An Impression of Titans Surface from Hyugens Data
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120928085222.htm
Slide 24
Possible Life on Titan? Recent research has provided
fascinating hints that liquid water may exist deep under Titan's
surface. Titan's seafloor may be similar to areas of Earth's
seafloor where hydrothermal vents exist. These passageways into
Earth's interior spout hot, mineral-rich water that fosters an
array of once-unknown forms of life.
Slide 25
Seasons Change on Titan
Slide 26
BBC Cassini-Hyugens Probe Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgRqUGLt vmM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgRqUGLt vmM
Slide 27
An unrequited mission After Cassini-Hyguens, there was urgency
to launch a follow up mission (to sail Titans methane seas).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL4LTFB O10Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL4LTFB O10Q