Saturn the Ringed Planet from Galileo to Cassini-Huygens

di Christopher Seddon (Autore)

Christopher Seddon, 2026

A concise history of Saturn from Galileo's discovery of of the rings, to the robotic probes of the Space Age. This 12,000 word eBook short read describes how the Cassini-Huygens mission has transformed our knowledge of Saturn, its spectacular ring system, and its many moons. Why are Saturn's rings so much more prominant than these of the other giant planets? Could the rings and moons be no more than 100 million years old - more recent, even, than the era of the dinosaurs on Earth? Saturn has 274 moons, more than the rest of the Solar System put together. They include smog-shrouded Titan, a moon larger than the planet Mercury, with an atmosphere 50 per cent denser than that of Earth; Enceladus, where life could exist an a subsurface ocean; and enigmatic Iapetus, darkened on one side with a mysterious ridge running along its equator. Although the three major rings extend from 74,650 to 136,750 km (47,000 to 85,000 miles) from the centre of Saturn, their thickness is thought to be typically no more than 10 m (33 feet). *Reports of rings exterior to the A ring predate the Space Age. French astronomer Georges Fournier (1881-1954) reported a 'dusky ring' in 1907, but the E, F, and G rings are way beyond the resolution of the 280 mm (11 inch) refractor he used and can only be observed from space probes. There were also reports of a D ring, interior to the C ring for decades before its confirmation by Voyager 1. Again, though, the ring reported by Voyager 1 is too faint to have been observed from Earth with the telescopes of that time. *Saturn's total of 82 known moons is three more than Jupiter's 79 and the most of any planet in the Solar System. *Titan is the only moon in the Solar System to possess a dense atmosphere. Consisting mainly of nitrogen, the atmosphere is denser than that of Earth. Other than Earth, Titan is the only known Solar System body where stable bodies of liquid have been found, albeit these are liquid hydrocarbons rather than water. *That's no moon - yes, it is. The landscape on Mimas is dominated by the crater Herschel, which stretches a third of a way around the moon. When viewed from the right angle, Mimas resembles the moon-sized Deathstar space station that featured in the first Star Wars movie. The film was released in 1977, three years before Mimas was first imaged in detail during the Voyager flybys.

• Autore: Christopher Seddon
• Anno edizione: 2026
• Editore: Christopher Seddon
• Formato: EPUB3 con DRMFREE
• Lingua: Inglese
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• Layout: Reflowable
• EAN: 9781916296473