101 Facts about Saturn I’m here today to rocket usall into space at the speed of space for a video about a planet in space no i know we’ve done mars and jupiter and yes we technically have done the entire solar system and all of space but today we’re talking about 101 Facts about Saturn specifically but what shape is saturn’s northern polar vortex how many moons does saturnactually have and.
Have you ever looked into the sky and thought you saw saturn but it was actually just a really brightstar i’ve never done that two out ofthese three questions are going to beanswered so strap in don’t forget to like and subscribe Facts about and let’s blast off with some 101 Facts about Saturn mouth wash with 101 facts about saturn yeah
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let’s start with the basics saturn is a planet in our solar system the sixth planet from the sun it sits between jupiter and uranus 101 Facts about Saturn
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In terms of literal distancesaturn is 886 million miles away from our sun on average as the planet orbits the sun much like we do on earth saturn’s distance from the sun can 101 Facts about Saturn vary between 839 million and 934 millionmiles.
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whilst people kind a knew saturn was up there thousands of years before hand the first official observation and documentation of saturn through 101 Facts about Saturn a telescope was made by galileo galilei in july 1610
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when galileo discovered the planet his telescope wasn’t great so he thought that saturn was kind of a triple planet or shaped a bit like a mickey mouse head turns out he was very wrong 101 Facts about Saturn .
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49 years later dutch astronomer christian hugins had a look at saturn through a more powerful telescope and got a clearer picture what he was then 101 Facts about Saturn able to tell us was that saturn did not have Facts about Saturn ears or arms or anything like that they were actually rings
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and those rings are probably what saturn is best known for we’ll talk about them in a bit more detail later but there are more than 30 rings someone really 101 Facts about Saturn took bey once’s advice number seven
remember i said that saturn’s distance from the sun varies by almost 100 million miles well that’s because saturn’s orbit is slightly elliptic just like earth this means at 101 Facts about Saturn certain points during orbit it’s closer to the sun than others
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the ringed planet is also nine and a half times further from 101 Facts about Saturn the sun than earth is Facts about Saturn that’s it that’s the fact i’m gonna move on now
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saturn’s orbital period is equivalent to 29 earth years that means that just one year on saturn is equivalent to just over 29 earth years so that means on saturn. I’m just one year 101 Facts about Saturn old and not 30.
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conversely though a day on saturn is around 10.7 hours that’s because that’s the length of time it takes for saturn to turn on its axis to earth’s 24-hour days saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system coming Facts about Saturn second to 101 Facts about Saturn that big old show-off jupiter.
hey is that the thumbnail for 100 more facts about jupiter should put in a separate tap and then watch it after saturn that’d be exciting
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some what un surprisingly given its sizesaturn could be visible to the naked eyefrom earth if you’re cool enough to owna telescope even a small one there’s agood chance 101 Facts about Saturn you’ll be able to see saturn’s rings
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saturn has a radius of 36183 points miles not including the rings of course in comparison to earth it would take nine 101 Facts about Saturn earth side by side to make up the width of saturn
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in terms of size as a whole according to nasa if earth was the size of a nickel saturn would be the size ofa volley ball in other words it big for another comparison more than 700 earths would fit inside of saturn and i’d animate that but my computer would probably catch fire
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in terms of volume though saturn has the volume of around 760 earths with 95 times more mass than us not really sure how to equate that because mass is 101 Facts about Saturn confusing but it’s a fact okay number 16.
101 Facts about Saturn
If you wondered how big it was compared to the sun don’t worry i got it covered you could fit a whopping 1600 saturns into the sun so when i say saturn was big i wasn’t lying but the sun is just enormous saturn is one of the 101 Facts about Saturn four gas giants in our solar system.
Along side jupiter uranus and neptune they’re also called the jovian planets named after jupiter told it was a show-off number 18 being a gas giant this means that technically saturn doesn’t have a true surface like earth or mars do the planet is mostly made up of swollen gases and liquids held together by gravity number 19 it might have a solid core.
But it’s incredibly difficult for us to find out because 101 Facts about Saturn those swirling gases and liquid swill destroy any kind of probe we send that elusive little blighter except it’s not little it’s really big number 20 saturn is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium.
It’s roughly 96.3 molecular hydrogen and 3.25 percent helium which makes up around 99.55 percent the other 0.45 percent is made up of methane ammonia and a few other elements the upper clouds of saturn are mostly composed of ammonia crystals whereas the lower clouds are predominantly ammonium hydro sulfide or water.
I don’t know about you but i’m still not sure Facts about 101 Facts about Saturn how to say i’m amommy mom known saturn is also subject to photo chemical cycles if that makes you think of high school science and you want to cry then don’t worry me too.
But photo chemical cycles are basically the effects of sunlight on the planet number 23 more specifically ultra violet radiation from the sun’s light causes the methane in the upper atmosphere to break down creating a lot of chemical reactions.
Which then causes the left over products to diffuse down wards towards the planet’s core number 24 because it’s a cycle this process happens every saturn year which if you’ll cast your mind back a few facts you’ll remember is roughly 29 years.
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much like jupiter saturn looks like it has bands or stripes around it although aren’t nearly as bold these drops are caused by the clouds surrounding the planet
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the stripes occur due to Facts about Saturn different pressures and temperatures around the planet these are pushed into bands of clouds which circulate the planet the ones at the equator are much wider than the ones near the planet’s north and south poles too
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if you want some science on the side of that tasty fact water ice clouds at the top are in the least pressured part ammonium emote emo this wood hydrosulfate ice is in the mid-range and then the lowest cloud layers are made up of lovely ammonia and water droplets Facts about don’t drink it though you’ll die
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in addition to the nice Facts about stripy clouds you can usually see on saturn there are patches of a few different shaped clouds like ovals these are thought to be great white spots caused by storms in the northern he misphere
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remember again that a saturn year is roughly 29 of our years while these storms usually occur during the summer so lstice of saturn when the daysare at their longest and occur once every saturnian year
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like earth has a northand south pole both of which are marked by an enormous swirling and terrifying storm at each end but there’s more to these storms than meets the eye
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my mom bought a phone and she said so you think of a storm and i’m guessing your assumption is something circular or at least round well you thought wrongthe storm at saturn’s north pole is actually the shape of a hexagon
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the hexagon was discovered during the voyager mission of 1981 and later revisited by the cassini shuttlein 2006.
During this 25-year gap the colour of the hexagon had changed from a bluish colour to a golden colour and that’s
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the leading theory for this colour change is that the amount of sunlight it sees affects the colour so as the seasons change the poles see more or less sun and the color changes depending on how much the sun penetrates the storm clouds or Facts about Saturn something like that anyway nota scientist
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But why is it hexagon shaped it’s a good question such a good question in fact that no one is completely sure why one theory is basically that different wind speeds and turbulent flows push the sides in
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another theory is that it’s a standing wave pattern when ongoing storm causes the winds to rotate as waves rather than in one direction or in a circle remember that science experiment where you rope up and down it’s essentially that but the rope joins together at the end kinda silence is hard Facts about Saturn
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to put the bigger hexagon into perspective you could easily fit two earths into it and still have some wiggle Facts about Saturn room it’s big
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just to make matters more complicated when images from the cassini mission transmitted to earth in 2006 scientists were made aware of a second hexagon inside the big hexagon
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much like the big hexagon the little hexagon is the subject of a lot of speculation no one really knows why it’s there or how it started it’s also thought to be a standing wave scenario but no one could really know for sure currently
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both poles have vortexes and don’t worry that’s not a multi-dimensional dock 2 kind of thing these vortexes or vortices are created by the wind flows. Which are also responsible for the hexagon in the north
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the vortex in the south pole takes the shape of an eye much like ahurricane would do on earth and it’s the only other planet we found so far to mirror that kind of weather anomaly even the great storm on jupiter doesn’t appear to have an eye
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saturn is also the only planet in our solar system that has a warm polar vortex rather than a colder one on all other planets the poles are colder however on saturn the air that circles here is warmer and are thought to be the warmest parts of the planet the meaning of life saturn has a magnetic field which is strongest at its equator and symmetriceach side of that equator despite the planets gargantuan size the strength magnetic field is slightly weaker than ours on earth
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like earth though the magnetic field on saturn produces aurorae which are natural bright light patterns in the sky caused by disturbances in the magneto sphere from solar winds
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the aurora on are very similar to ours with an oval shape oroccasionally a spiral shape the brightness is altered by the strength of the solar wind pressure and are brighter when closer to the poles
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it’s also the least dense of all the planets and it’s the only planetin our solar system that has a lower density than water that means if you had an absolutely unimaginably large bath tub filled with water is the only one of our planets that would float number 46 that being said the core of saturn isfar denser than water but the lack of density in the atmosphere still makes it able to float in the giant bathtub scenario
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so i already told you that has 95 times the mass that earth does don’t worry that’s still true but along side jupiter these two planets account for 92 percent of the total planetary mass in the solar system
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much like earth saturn takes the shape of a slightly squished sphere which bulges at the equator
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the temperature on the surface of is minus 139 degrees celsius for context the coldest temperature sever recorded on earth at ground level was-89.2 degrees celsius so yeah wrap it warm
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saturn has a yellowish shoe toit with Facts about Saturn may be a few hints of orange thrown in the mix too the colors are a result of saturn’s atmosphere with the upper layer of clouds made from ammonia crystals and the lower consisting of water or ammonium hydrosulfide
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saturn also has the second fastest winds in the solar system coming second toneptune data from the voyager expedition found that peak easterly winds could reach speeds of 1 800 kilometers per hour that’s almost 20 times faster than a cheetah running at its fastest or twice the speed of the average commercial plane
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saturn’s rings are believed to be made of a load of pieces of come tsasteroids and shattered moons that were broken up by saturn’s immense gravity before reaching.
The plane tnumber 53 how big are the rings they’re massive the largest span 7 000 times the diameter of saturn the main rings are typically only about 9 meters thick and they extend up to 282 000 kilometers from the planet
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however in 2017 the cassini-hughes spacecraft reveale dvertical formations in some of the rings showing particles piling up in bumps and bridges more than two miles or three kilometers in
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okay okay they’re huge but how many are there well saturn is generally considered to have seven main rings all named alphabetically in the order they were discovered so c b and a are the main rings while the inner most and extremely faint one is ring d that’s four for those who aren’t pay ingattention
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beyond the a ring is the f ring then well far out is the e ring and then theg ring sits between the f and e-ring and it’s a good system absolutely not confusing at all
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right so what about the biggest ring well this was only discovered in 2009 this infrared ring was picked up by nasa’s space telescope with the material sitting only 3.7 million miles away from the planet it’s so big it could fit a billion earths within it
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potentially there are even more rings around the planet there’s the janus ring the method ring arc the antring arc and the palin ring arc ii let’s just all agree that there are lots of them
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then there are gaps between the rings which i guess also look like rings in away one such gap is known as the cass inidivision a gap of 2 twenty miles or four thousand seven kilometers wide that separates ring a and b
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now that i’ve given you alla headache let me tell you how these rings can be pretty cool saturn’s f ring for example has a curious Facts about Saturn braided appearance given by several narrow rings with bends kinks and bright clumps in them that can give the illusion that these strands are braided
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data also shows that in the gaps between the rings it rains though it’s not quite the rain we’re used to here on earth it’s more a matter of complex chemical Facts about Saturn debris falling from rings into theat mosphere
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saturn’s rings even have their own unique mystery that has been puzzling scientists for decades first Facts about discovered in the 1980s the phenomenon is known as spokes these spokes resemble strange markings that appear across therings in minutes and last a few hours atmost before disappearing number 63 no one knows what they are exactly and why they appear and disappear especially in the b ring but it’s been assumed.
That they are probably formed by extremely small dust particle sheld in place by electrostatic forces ninten do 64. in fact the rings are in astronomical terms arelatively new and fleeting phenomenon they may be as young as 150 million.
years old meaning that a dinosaur looking at a saturn wouldn’t have seenany rings number 66 saturn has 53 confirmed moons and 29 still awaiting confirmation once confirmed saturn will have a total of 82 moons wouldn’t it be great if one of them Facts about Saturn was actually made of cheese number 67
the first moon was discovered all the way back in 1655 and most of them have names i say most of them 53 of them others just have your classical numerical name based on the year they were discovered number 68 is considered to have eight major moons titan encladus mimosdion hyperion iopetus reya and tethys.
number 69 i said all those names wrong i’m sure of it the name a convention for the moons which sees them take their names titans was first suggested in 1847 by sir john Facts about Saturn herschel a british astronomer number 70 the titans battled the olympian gods but were defeated once all those names were used up the moons took.
their names from other characters from greek and roman mythology number 71 probably should mention that the name of comes from the roman god of agriculture and wealth who also happens to be the father of jupiter fort hose of you more acquainted with greek mythology which we did a monster of a video about is the equivalent ofcronus the terrifying baby eating father number 72 those romans also named saturday after saturn saturn day saturday.
Facts about He get it number 73 any way back to those 82 moons that does sound like a lot of moons doesn’t it well it should because it’s actually more than any other planet in our solar system the closest rival is jupiter with 79 moons number 74 with so many moons you might not be surprised to hear that some of them.
aren’t even spherical in shape hyperionis said to resemble a sponge janus a meat ball and prometheus go on take a guess points for anyone who says sweet potato number 75 one of the more exotic phenomenon that’s been observed between saturn’s rings has the nickname peggy this looks to be either a moon that’s disinte grating or being forme d.
number 76 the most famous of these Facts about moons is likely titan i’m sure the other moons won’t be jealous that i mentioned it hope they won’t it’s the second biggest moon in the entire solar system behind jupiter’s gany mede that’s just two percent larger though number 77 Facts about Saturn where titan is unique how everis that.
it’s the only moon with a richat mosphere its surface pressure is 60 more than what you’d find here on earth so if we ever got to travel there it would feel like the pressure experienced when swimming 15 meters below the ocean surface on earth number 78 while the atmospheric pressure might be higher on tighter than here because it’s more than.
earth it doesn’t have the same gravitational cloud when it comes to keeping the atmosphere inplace as a result its atmosphere stretches 10 times higher into space than earth’s number 79 this combo of thick atmosphere and low gravity means it will be possible for Facts about humans to fly under their own power.
If they strapped wings Facts about Saturn to their arms number 80 titan is also the only other place in the solar system other than earth where there is liquid on its surface Facts about because the temperature is so cold on titan that liquid on the surfaceisn’t water but methane and ethane number 81 again other than earth is the only place in the solar system.
to have a proper cycle of rain from Facts about Saturn clouds with liquid flowing on its surface plus lakes and seas then it evaporates back up to the sky number 82 more excitingly for us humans there is plenty of water on touting the surface but it’s frozen a temperature of -179 degrees celsius will have that effect the outer crust of the moon is made fromice.
number 83 the other layers of the moon from the outwards in are the water ice Facts about Saturn we mentioned then a layer of liquid water then a load of water ice at high pressure that’s called i 6 and the core itself is made of rock it’s about 2 500 miles in diameter number 84 we’ve mentioned water a lot during the last couple of facts and titan is one of the few places in the solar system.
that could have habitable prospects for us humans the ocean of liquid water is between 35 to 50 miles below the surface although the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen so breathing will be a problem Facts about Saturn Facts about Saturn number 85 it’s even speculated that life might exist in the ocean under neath the surface or maybe even new life forms in different conditions on the surface although no evidence of this has yet been found number 86.
If one moon with liquid water wasn’t enough saturn has another one encladus the cassini probe discovered that this moon ejects water vapours and ice particles from Facts about Saturn an ocean under its surface number 87 before we carry on with the water chat though let’s get the low down on some other included facts it’s actually the most reflective body in the whole of the solar system.
thanks to its super smooth bright white surface number 88 it’s the brightest world inthe solar system if we can call it aworld since it’s a moon that’s only 314 miles across for a bit of perspective the uk is only 300 miles wide and 600 miles long so yeah and clearly this is not that massive number 89 any way back to those jets of ice particles and water.
they’re ejected from encladus at a mind boggling 800 miles per hour at that speed the plumes end up stretching out into space so far in fact that some of these particles form part of saturn’se-ring number 90 it’s estimated that there are more than 100 geysers on enclidus at the moon’s south pole number 91 includes the structure features an icy crust and rock core.
but in Facts about Saturn between is a Facts about Saturn huge ocean of salty water how huge it’s global spanning the entire moon number 92 it’s even thought that encladas could be home to life you know there’s the whole water thing plus cassini data suggests it has hydrothermal vents on the sea floor scientists have suggested that such fence gave rise to life on earth number 93 prometheus is the closest moon to Facts about Saturn saturn and it takes roughly 14.7 hours to circle saturn.
That’s like as long as one netflix series number 94 at first glance you might be mistaken that there is a death star orbiting saturn but actually it’s the moon mimimus which just looks like the fully operational star killing Facts about Saturn base from star wars number 95 mimos is yet another moon that is host to water although just not as much as some of the other moons.
that we’ve mentioned it might have a small underground ocean or a core made of ice number 96 reya and dion both have atmospheres but they’re super thin and i mean super thin compared to earth these atmospheres area bout 5 trillion times less dense although Facts about Saturn oxygen is present in said atmospheres number 97 rare doesn’t even have a core.
it’s just a solid lump of ice with a few bits of rocks mixed in for good measure it’s thought Facts about Saturn that radiation from saturn might be responsible for the release of co2 and oxygen from the icy surface number 98 hyperion’s claim to fame is that except for our moon it’s the only other object in the solar system that has a charged surface when the cassini probe passed by it went through a beam of electrons coming from the moon’s surface.
number 99 while the moon i opetus has a Facts about Saturn mountain range which is 20 kilometers high that stretches around its center yes it makes it look like a massive walnut but these mountains are the third highest in the entire solar system you’re still thinking about the walnut thing aren’t you whoa it’s number 100 there have been four spacecrafts.
that have visited Facts about Saturn saturn from earth these are nasa’s pioneer 11 in 1979 nasa’s twin voyager 1and 2 in 1980 and 1981 and the international cassini spacecraft in 2004. cassini studied saturn for 13 years when the mission ended the spacecraft was sent into saturn’s atmosphere where itvaporized kind of a sad fact to end on but.
this isn’t a hollywood movie people suck it up that was 101 facts about saturn Facts about Saturn did you learn many things Facts about Saturn did you learn any things let me know in the comments down below also while you’re down there give us a like and subscribe so you can see like all kinds of cool fun stuff.Facts about Saturn
