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Stormy Saturn

Saturn looks tranąull, but its upper

atmosphere is fuli of storms and powerful winds

that blow up to speeds of 1,200 mph (1,930 km/h).

Its calm appearance comes from a thin layer of foggy haze that surrounds the planet.

A region in Saturn’s Southern hemisphere is so stormy that it was nicknamed Storni Alley.

A huge thunderstorm deep in Saturn’s atmosphere has been named Dragon Storm

because its outline resembles that of a dragon.

Cassini Division

Cloud-top view

When we look at the gas planets such as Saturn, all we see are the high clouds in their hydrogen and helium atmospheres. Their different colors are the result of different additional elements and the temperatures of the atmospheres.

Exploration of Saturn Four spacecraft have visited Saturn: the first three flew by; the fourth, Cassini, is in orbit around Saturn and its moons.
spacecraft	year
Pioneer 11	1979
Voyager 1	1980
Voyager 2	1981
Cassini	2004 to present

X-ray planet

■ Saturn’s atmosphere acts like a mirror reflecting light, and other forms of energy, such as x-rays, from the Sun.

■ The Chandra X-ray Observatory space telescope studied Saturn in 2004. It found that Saturn’s rings sparkle in x-rays.

■ The Chandra x-ray image and an optical image are combined in the image above. The blue dots are caused by x-rays from the Sun striking the oxygen atoms in the water ice of the ring particles.

Saturn’s moons

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Saturn has a large family of moons. At present, there are 60 known moons, with the smallest measuring just a couple of miles across.

Titan

Saturn’s largest moon and the second-largest moon in the solar system.

Enceladus

Located within Saturn’s rings, Enceladus’s icy surface makes it shine brightly.

Mimas

Also within the rings, Mimas is an icy bali of rock that is covered with craters.

Phoebe

Phoebe is the largest of the 38 moons that orbit Saturn at great distance.

Saturn may look like a huge bali, but it is not actually spherical in shape—the planet is wider around its equator than around its poles. Saturn rotates every 10.7 hours, and as it does so, materiał is flung outward, resulting in its bulging eguator (which is the biggest of any planet).

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