The atmospheric pressure at the core would be so high that it would crush any probe that we might send there today.

We have not yet been able to probe deep into Saturn’s atmosphere to reach its core. We believe there is a rocky or metallic core to Saturn, but we don’t know for sure. Some scientists think that the gas giants may be failed stars. Jupiter and Saturn are called gas giants since they are made primarily of Hydrogen and Helium gas. Naturally, when Saturn is on the other side of the Sun we can’t see it. When Saturn is the farthest from Earth, when it is on the other side of the Sun, we are over a billion miles apart. So the image you see of Saturn is of Saturn 80 minutes ago. It takes almost 80 minutes for that reflected light to travel from Saturn to the Earth. The light we see from Saturn comes from the Sun and the planet and rings reflect it back toward Earth. When we are closest we are about 750 million miles apart. From Earth, Saturn is the third planet out, after Mars and Jupiter. And Saturn’s year, the time it takes Saturn to orbit the Sun is approximately 29 Earth years. Saturn’s day is about 10.7 hours, a little less than half of our day. Saturn orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 890 million miles. It is the second-largest planet in the solar system, after Jupiter, having a diameter approximately 9 times the diameter of the Earth. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturnus, the god of agriculture and harvest. When showing the sky to friends, if Saturn is in the sky, start with Saturn. The first time you see Saturn in the eyepiece and see those rings you should have a WOW moment. I call Saturn the rock star of the solar system. Its successor, the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch in October 2021, if the coronavirus pandemic does not delay it further.Of all the planets, Saturn is the most spectacular. The Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this year. However, the brightness of the rings suggests they could have formed much more recently when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. One theory suggests they are as old as the planet itself, just over 4 billion years.

How and when the rings formed remains a mystery. That Enceladus, which is the dot at the bottomĪlso visible in crisp detail are the planet’s famous icy Moons, are also clearly visible in the image. Mimas (right) and Enceladus, two of Saturn’s 82 The planet - just barely visible - highlights how Saturn changes during the Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.Īlternatively, the blue hue that can be seen at the South Pole of “It’s amazing that even over a few years, we’re seeing seasonalĬhanges on Saturn,” said lead investigator Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard May be affecting circulation or ice in the atmosphere, or the sunlight may beĪffecting the production of photochemical haze, NASA said.

The reddish haze that can be seen over the northern hemisphere mayīe due to increased heat from the sun that comes during the summer. Visible are a number of small atmospheric storms, as well as the bands’ changing colour from year to year. Not only is it stunning, but it captures important details of the planet’s shifting weather. The image highlights summertime in the planet’s northern hemisphere, NASA said. In order to potentially understand its evolution. Project, which is helping scientists study our solar system’s gas giants.Īstronomers are eager to track shifting weather patterns and storms on Saturn The photo was taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy

At the time, the planet was 839 million miles (1.3 billion kilometres) from Earth - visible as just a spot of bright light with the naked eye. NASA called Saturn the “lord of the rings” in its recent announcement about the new image, which was taken on July 4. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a new image of the planet, which shows its rings in stunningly clear detail. It’s summertime on Saturn, and rarely have Earthlings seen such a clear view of the planet.

Image of saturn through telescope