Saturn+-+MP

Getting Started

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Rubric: [[file:Space Exploration Adventure Rubric.doc]], [[file:Space Exploration Adventure Rubric.pdf]]

 * Written Information **: As you enter text, the area will expand. Make sure to check the required details of the assignment and review the rubric (see document links) to self-assess your work. Your paragraphs will be in block format, enter one return between paragraphs. The tab key, indent feature will not appear when typing directly into the wiki page.

Visuals Make sure to include the location of your images; add a caption with this information


 * [[image:http://www.solarviews.com/thumb/sat/PIA03156.jpg caption="Saturn's Seasons"]]

||  ||   || Hydrogen Helium || 97% 3% || ||  ||   || ||   ||   ||
 * ||||~ Saturn Statistics ||
 * ~ Mass (kg) || 5.688e+26 ||
 * ~ Mass (Earth = 1) || 9.5181e+01 ||
 * ~ Equatorial radius (km) || 60,268 ||
 * ~ Equatorial radius (Earth = 1) || 9.4494e+00 ||
 * ~ Mean density (gm/cm^3) || 0.69 ||
 * ~ Mean distance from the Sun (km) || 1,429,400,000 ||
 * ~ Mean distance from the Sun (Earth = 1) || 9.5388 ||
 * ~ Rotational period (hours) || 10.233 ||
 * ~ Orbital period (years) || 29.458 ||
 * ~ Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) || 9.67 ||
 * ~ Orbital eccentricity || 0.0560 ||
 * ~ Tilt of axis (degrees) || 25.33 ||
 * ~ Orbital inclination (degrees) || 2.488 ||
 * ~ Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec^2) || 9.05 ||
 * ~ Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec) || 35.49 ||
 * ~ Visual geometric albedo || 0.47 ||
 * ~ Magnitude (Vo) || 0.67 ||
 * ~ Mean cloud temperature || -125°C ||
 * ~ Atmospheric pressure (bars) || 1.4 ||
 * ~ Atmospheric composition

**Works Cited** **Sources** : Include the source information for all of the magazine articles, reference sources (encyclopedias) and web site pages that were used to complete your project. The source information for encyclopedias may be found at the end or beginning of each entry in iCONN. When using periodicals, the publication information will be at the beginning or end of the article. This needs to be formatted for MLA standards. If it is not labeled 'Source Citation' it can be formatted appropriately by using EasyBib.com. You should use EasyBib for the web sites. The final Works Cited should be listed in alphabetical order by the first word of the source citation.


 * Sample:**

"Milky Way." //Kids InfoBits Presents: Astronomy//. Gale, 2008. Reproduced in Kids InfoBits. Detroit: Gale, 2012. "The Milky Way." //WMAP's Universe//. NASA, 28 June 2010. Web. 06 Mar. 2012. . Vergano, Dan. "Galaxy Bracketed by Big Bubbles." //USA Today// 10 Nov. 2010: 05A. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.

[] [] [] [|http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2111032/Incredible-pictures-shed-new-light-Saturns-fog-shrouded-moon-Titan.html#ixzz1oMQoTcbs] []
 * Your Source List:**

[]

**Topic: Research Focus**
 * What is your topic? Saturn**
 * State the focus of your research: Saturn's Rings and Moons**

**Notes** ==== Include notes, statistics and facts that you will use to write your final paper. You may want to label sections of your notes to help you be more organized as you write. As you take notes from a source, you should list the source citation in the Works Cited section above. ==== Each ring around saturn is a different color. The different rings orbit Saturn at different speeds. The rings around Saturn are different colors. Each ring orbits around the planet at a different speed. Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest planet in the solar system. It is one of five planets that can be seen without a telescope. It looks like a bright, yellow star in the night sky.

Structure of Saturn
Like Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, Saturn is a gas giant. It is mainly made up of hydrogen and helium. Its core is rock and ice. The core is surrounded by more ice, which is actually a liquid mixture of water, methane, and ammonia. Outside that is a thick layer of metallic hydrogen and an outer layer of hydrogen gas. Clouds of ammonia ice float below Saturn's atmosphere. Winds in the atmosphere can move as quickly as 1,600 feet (488 meters) per second. These fast winds, along with the heat inside the planet, make the yellow and gold rings around Saturn. Saturn takes about 29.5 years to orbit the sun. One day on Saturn is about 10.5 hours long.

Rings of Saturn
When Italian astronomer Galileo first observed Saturn in 1610, he thought the planet had three parts. He drew the two outer ones to look like ears, or handles. Later astronomers with better telescopes realized that these were rings. In the late 1800s scientists found out that the rings were not solid. They are mainly made up of ice, dust, and rocky debris. These particles can be as small as a grain of salt to as large as a house. Scientists think they are pieces of comets, asteroids, or moons. Pictures taken by the space probe //Voyager 2//, show that the rings are different colors. Although there are thousands of rings, the main ones have been labeled with letters of the alphabet from Ato G. Each ring orbits at a different speed around the planet. The three main rings are A and B rings, which are bright, and the lighter C ring. The largest gap between rings is found between A and B. This 2,983-mile (4,801-kilometer) opening is called the Cassini Division.

One unusual feature of the rings is that there sometimes appears to be spokes in them. When they are on the lighted side of Saturn, the spokes look dark. On the unlit side, they are light. (The lighted side of Saturn faces the sun, while the unlited side faces away from the sun.) Scientists first noticed these spokes in pictures taken by //Voyager 1// in 1980. The spokes did not show up in pictures from 2004, but were there in 2005. Although astronomers are not sure what causes them, they believe the spokes are made up of tiny dust particles.

Moons of Saturn
Sixty moons orbit Saturn; 52 of them have been named. Three other possible moons were spotted in 2007. Most of the moons are very small. Titan is Saturn's largest moon. It is the second largest moon in the solar system. It is also the only moon with an atmosphere around it.

Titan, the Largest Moon of Saturn

 * Titan has an atmosphere. This can be seen faintly in the image on the left as an outline, and more clearly in the following image**
 * taken by Voyager looking back at Titan and showing sunlight scattering in the atmosphere. The atmosphere of Titan has several layers of haze. It has a pressure at the surface of 1.6 times that of Earth, and is made up primarily of nitrogen, with about a 1% concentration of methane. The temperature on the surface is very cold, about -180 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere is extremely opaque because of thick smog that appears to result from sunlight interacting with hydrocarbons, much as smog forms on the Earth.**
 * The clouds are probably composed of liquid nitrogen and methane drops, and it is speculated that Titan may be coverered with hydrocarbon lakes or oceans (specifically, methane and ethane). Although many of the organic chemicals thought to have been the precursors to life on Earth are present on Titan, it appears to be too cold for life as we know it to have evolved there. Here is a movie of [|infra-red images of Titan]made with the Hubble Space Telescape. The structure shown in this animation represents heat variations in the atmosphere and surface of Titan.**

New studies have shed light on Saturn's mysterious moon Titan - showing off lakes, craters and river deltas beneath the cold world's thick, hazy atmosphere. The studies, built on data from instruments aboard Nasa's orbiting Cassini probe, also offer hints of what lies below the moon's surface. Like [|Jupiter], Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Its volume is 755 times greater than that of [|Earth]. Winds in the upper atmosphere reach 500 m (1,600 feet) per second in the equatorial region. (In contrast, the strongest hurricane-force winds on Earth top out at about 110 m, or 360 feet per second.) These super-fast winds, combined with heat rising from within the planet's interior, cause the yello

Saturn is the least dense of the planets; its specific gravity (0.7) is less than that of water.

Like Jupiter, Saturn is about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium with traces of water, methane, ammonia and "rock", similar to the composition of the primordial [|Solar Nebula]from which the solar system was formed.

Saturn's interior is similar to Jupiter's consisting of a rocky core, a [|liquid metallic hydrogen] layer and a molecular hydrogen layer. Traces of various [|ices]are also present.

Saturn's interior is hot (12000 K at the core) and Saturn radiates more energy into space than it receives from the [|Sun]. Most of the extra energy is generated by the [|Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism] as in [|Jupiter]. But this may not be sufficient to explain Saturn's luminosity; some additional mechanism may be at work, perhaps the "raining out" of helium deep in Saturn's interior.

The ring particles seem to be composed primarily of water ice, but they may also include rocky particles with icy coatings.

Saturn's Rings Radius Radius approx. approx. Name inner outer width position [|mass] (kg) -- -- -   D-Ring 67,000 74,500 7,500 (ring) Guerin Division C-Ring 74,500 92,000 17,500 (ring) 1.1e18 Maxwell Division 87,500 88,000 500 (divide) B-Ring 92,000 117,500 25,500 (ring) 2.8e19 [|Cassini] Division 115,800 120,600 4,800 (divide) [|Huygens]Gap 117,680 (n/a) 285-440 (subdiv) A-Ring 122,200 136,800 14,600 (ring) 6.2e18 Encke Minima 126,430 129,940 3,500 29%-53% Encke Division 133,410 133,740 Keeler Gap 136,510 136,550 F-Ring 140,210 30-500 (ring) G-Ring 165,800 173,800 8,000 (ring) 1e7? E-Ring 180,000 480,000 300,000 (ring) Notes: * distance is kilometers from Saturn's center * the "Encke Minima" is a slang term used by amateur astronomers, not an official IAU designation

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and is the second largest in the solar system with an equatorial diameter of 119,300 kilometers (74,130 miles). Much of what is known about the planet is due to the [|Voyager] explorations in 1980-81. Saturn is visibly flattened at the poles, a result of the very fast rotation of the planet on its axis. Its day is 10 hours, 39 minutes long, and it takes 29.5 Earth years to revolve about the Sun. The atmosphere is primarily composed of hydrogen with small amounts of helium and methane. Saturn is the only planet less dense than water (about 30 percent less). In the unlikely event that a large enough ocean could be found, Saturn would float in it. Saturn's hazy yellow hue is marked by broad atmospheric banding similar to, but fainter than, that found on [|Jupiter]. The wind blows at high speeds on Saturn. Near the equator, it reaches velocities of 500 meters a second (1,100 miles an hour). The wind blows mostly in an easterly direction. The strongest winds are found near the equator and velocity falls off uniformly at higher latitudes. At latitudes greater than 35 degrees, winds alternate east and west as latitude increases. Saturn's [|ring system] makes the planet one of the most beautiful objects in the solar system. The rings are split into a number of different parts, which include the bright A and B rings and a fainter C ring. The ring system has various gaps. The most notable gap is the Cassini [kah-SEE-nee] Division, which separates the A and B rings. [|Giovanni Cassini] discovered this division in 1675. The Encke [EN-kee] Division, which splits the A Ring, is named after Johann Encke, who discovered it in 1837. Space probes have shown that the main rings are really made up of a large number of narrow ringlets. The origin of the rings is obscure. It is thought that the rings may have been formed from larger moons that were shattered by impacts of comets and meteoroids. The ring composition is not known for certain, but the rings do show a significant amount of water. They may be composed of icebergs and/or snowballs from a few centimeters to a few meters in size. Much of the elaborate structure of some of the rings is due to the gravitational effects of nearby satellites. This phenomenon is demonstrated by the relationship between the F-ring and two small moons that //shepherd//the ring material. Radial, spoke-like features in the broad B-ring were also found by the Voyagers. The features are believed to be composed of fine, dust-size particles. The spokes were observed to form and dissipate in the time-lapse images taken by the Voyagers. While electrostatic charging may create spokes by levitating dust particles above the ring, the exact cause of the formation of the spokes is not well understood. Saturn has 30 named satellites and more continue to be discovered.