The first real images of Saturn - what did we find?

In 1969, the first man landed on the moon. To this day, manned space travel is not yet ready to look towards Mars or even other planets, but progress and technology, coupled with an indomitable thirst for knowledge, make it possible to explore the infinite vastness of the universe.

Many years ago, probes were built and launched into space to collect data and information about our solar system in the search for knowledge and possible life beyond Earth. Projects were developed, and the impossible was made possible by measuring instruments and high-resolution cameras.

This astonishing knowledge about Saturn was collected during a 20-year mission. If you would like to leave the earth with us to travel to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, that will be waiting for you in the future. Let's begin the journey to the mysterious Saturn.

Saturn is not only the sixth planet in our solar system but also the second-largest after its direct neighbor, Jupiter, with an approximate distance of 1.4 billion kilometers from the sun to Saturn. The planet takes about 29 years and 166 days to complete one orbit.

The minimum distance to Earth is about 1.2 billion kilometers. The equatorial diameter of Saturn is approximately 1,20,500 kilometers, which is nine and a half times the diameter of the Earth.

Credit to Johannes Gerhardus Swanepoe

The weight of Saturn is 95 earth masses, which means the planet weighs the same as 95 Earths. Because of its size, Saturn has discovered thousands of years ago and even before the telescope was invented.

Its most famous feature is probably its rings, which gave Saturn the name "ringed planet". The rings consist mainly of asteroids and water ice. The planet was named after the Roman god of harvest, and its astronomical symbol represents the sickle of the god Saturn because its surface consists of over 95 hydrogen atoms. Saturn is considered a gas planet.

This property leads to a relatively low density. An earth-like planet of this size would be many times heavier under the hydrogen layer. The metal layer begins with a thickness of about fourteen thousand kilometers. Further inside, it is followed by a layer of ice eight thousand kilometers wide.

This high-pressure ice doesn't evaporate only because the upper layers exert such pressure on the ice layer. Temperatures in the region can reach 13,000 degrees Celsius.

What is the composition of the planet's atmosphere?

Could we ever live on a gas planet? Hydrogen accounts for the majority of the composition, about 97 percent. The remaining three percent is primarily made up of helium methane, ammonia, and steam, with a surface temperature of 140 degrees Celsius on average. Therefore, the question of whether humans will ever settle on Saturn has therefore been answered.

Credit to https://youngchemist.com/

Saturn is simply not earth-like enough for man, even after terraforming, to ever settle there. Mars is much more likely. Saturn's interior consists of metallic iron and silicate materials.

To date, 82 moons have been discovered in the orbit of the gas giant no other planet in our solar system has more satellites than Saturn. The largest and also best-known moon is Titan, with a diameter of about 5,150 kilometers.

Titan is also the only moon in our solar system with an atmosphere primarily composed of nitrogen, and on its surface there are so-called methane seas composed of liquid hydrocarbons, making Titan the only celestial body other than the Earth on which accumulated liquid can be found.

The space probes Cassini and Huygens

The Cassini and Huygens space probes Maybe you remember In October 1997, a Titan 4brocket with two probes onboard was launched from Cape Canaveral. The two space probes, Cassini and Huygens, were specially built to study Saturn and its numerous moons.

A new interactive timeline features milestones in the journey of NASA's Cassini spacecraft.Credit to https://www.nasa.gov/

Cassini was an orbiter whose mission was to study the orbit of the planet. Huygens, on the other hand, was designed to land on Titan and study the satellite on its surface. After almost seven years, the probes entered the orbit of the gas giant and traveled around Saturn's rings.

High-resolution photos were taken for the first time at close range. Images of the moon Phoebe could also be taken and show deep craters that could have been During the flight through the rings, two unknown relatively small moons were also discovered, which were provisionally named s 2004 s1 and s 2004 s2 on Titan.

On December 25th, 2004, Huygens was separated from Cassini by a blast and was able to start its landing approach to Titan. The time had come and after difficult turbulence, Huygens landed on Saturn's largest satellite, Titan.

Huygens landed on Saturn's largest satellite, Titan.Credit to https://www.esa.int/

The probe was able to transmit data from Titan's surface for just 72 minutes, but the time that could be obtained from this alone, but the time, but the time during separation from Saturn's 2004 s1 and At first glance, the moon's surface appears to be very similar to that of the Earth; river courses are also very similar to those of the Earth, and weather conditions are also very similar to those of our blue planet.

During the landing approach, Huygens was surrounded by fog for almost the entire time, but it was transparent enough to allow photographs. The wind on Titan had speeds of up to 450 kilometers per hour with Huygens.

It was possible for the first time to prove the existence of complex organic compounds. These are both gaseous and solid environments, especially valuable for science. The discovery of Argonne indicates that geological changes have taken place and may still be taking place.

Discoveries of new moons

In 2005, Cassini discovered another moon in the orbit of Saturn, Daphnis. In the same year, Cassini flew past the moon Hyperion for the first time and was able to take unique pictures of the satellite.

Although it's not unusual for moons to be deformed in this way, given the size of this moon, it was unique.

The Hyperion is believed to be a fragment of a larger celestial body. This may have been caused by a meteorite impact. The crater helios, with a depth of 10 kilometers and a diameter of 120 kilometers, indicates this Image of the satellite.

Saturn new moon HyperionCredit to https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/

This, named after a Greek mythological titan, is strikingly similar to images of the moon and our planet, with the round shape and craters on the surface sharing much in common with the earth's satellite. The moon, however, has a diameter three times as large as in 2006, but an as yet unknown ring of Saturn was discovered during the equinox mission on June 30th, 2008.

The primary mission was completed with full success and the Equinox Mission was launched during this mission. The thickness of Saturn's rings was investigated.

Saturn's Brightest Moon

Saturn's brightest moon, however, was also investigated. The solstice mission followed on October 10, 2010. On the moon, Enceladus, the first conditions for life were found in the form of a salt lake.

Molecular hydrogen points to hydrothermal activity in an ocean beneath the icy surface of Enceladus.Credit to NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Enceladus is mostly covered by water ice, but underneath there is a warm ocean. The spectacular images also show bright blue stripes that look like giant rivers. These stripes are cracks in the ice through which water is ejected into space.

The End of the Mission

At the end of the mission on September 15, 2017, Saturn's atmosphere was photographed with the Cassini probe for the first time, allowing scientists to capture high-resolution images of the planet's incredible beauty from a distance of 2.7 million kilometers.

Credit to Tazzshakur & https://www.wallpaperup.com/

The camera captured the planet and its rings. A closer picture of the rings was taken in August 2009. The belts of Saturn looked as though they were painted with a seemingly divine order in the chaos of rocks and water ice at the north pole.

The photos of the gas planet show how clearly the north pole stands out from the rest of the planet's surface as if it were drawn and manually constructed. You can see the hexagonal shape of the pole clearly in the pictures.

Hexagon on SaturnCredit to NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University & https://www.space.com/

Cassini's equipment was more than just overtaxed. The intensity and frequency of the lightning were too much for the probe. On the day the earth smiled, the storm's diameter was estimated to be 100 000 kilometers. Another unique and incredible recording was made in 2013.

Saturn, with its rings and its many extraordinary moons, may no longer be a mystery, but by no means have all the mysteries been solved.