NASA’s Voyager 1 flew past Saturn in 1980 and, along with Voyager 2, which reached the planet in 1981, snapped nearly 16,000 images of Saturn, its rings and moons. 1, 1979, according to the Planetary Society. The Pioneer 11 spacecraft launched from Earth on Apand completed a flyby of the ringed giant on Sept. Have humans explored Saturn?įour robotic probes have visited Saturn, according to NASA. Saturn has an axial tilt very close to our own, about 26.73 degrees with respect to its orbit around the sun (Earth's is 23.5 degrees), meaning that Saturn experiences seasons similar to our own planet. The planet has the second-shortest day in the solar system, at only 10.7 hours, just slightly longer than Jupiter’s 9.93-hour day. It usually takes sunlight 80 minutes to travel between the sun and Saturn. Saturn orbits at an average distance of 886 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) from the sun, the central star in our solar system, meaning that one Saturnian year lasts roughly 29.4 Earth years, according to NASA. ![]() Because of its fast rotation rate, Saturn is visibly flattened at its poles, according to the agency. The planet’s clouds come in different shades of brown, yellow and gray, and they form a mysterious and strange hexagonal-shaped storm system at the north pole.īolts of lightning thought to be 10,000 times more powerful than those on Earth can be seen on Saturn, and NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spotted a storm that affected the planet’s weather patterns for more than three years, according to ESA. Winds in the upper atmosphere of Saturn are far stronger than those produced by hurricanes on Earth, reaching an astounding 1,090 mph (1,755 km/h in its equatorial regions. It is the least dense planet in the solar system, with an average density less than that of water, meaning it would float in a (very large) bathtub. ![]() Saturn’s outermost layers are made from swirling gases of mostly hydrogen and helium, plus trace amounts of water, ammonia and methane, that become liquid as pressures and temperatures increase deeper down, according to NASA. ![]() (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute) Series of images tracking the development of Saturn’s giant storm, as seen at visible wavelengths during much of 2011.
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