Blue Skies on Saturn

I found this quite interesting. It turns out the yellow clouds of Saturn, which are behind the rings in our frame of reference, have receded deeper into the planets, leaving behind mainly hydrogen molecules. The effect? Blue skies!

Blue Skies on Saturn

Fast forward 100 years: You're an astronaut piloting an airplane in the upper atmosphere of Saturn. The gas giant has no solid surface to walk on and no seas to put a boat in. Exploring Saturn means flying, dipping in and out of strangely-colored clouds, racing through ring shadows. It's a totally alien world.

It's so alien that you start to feel homesick. So you do what they taught you in astronaut training. Take a deep breath, look up at the sunny blue sky and pretend to be back on Earth. Works every time!

Sunny blue skies ... on Saturn? It's true. NASA's Cassini spacecraft discovered them in 2005.

Here's the image taken by Cassini. The black lines on the planet are shadows cast by Saturn's Rings. The moon in the foreground is Mimas.



[edit on 2/18/2005 by cmdrkeenkid]

that picture is so awsome, its now my desktop wallpaper

the amount of scientific info that already has been gathered by Cassini/Huygens
easily makes this mission worth while.

I have peered at Saturn through my 12" Newtonian more then any other
object in the sky, and seeing these up close images gives me an even more
attachment to this beautiful world.

Cheers to Cassini/Huygens... Thanks for bringing Astromony closer to home!

Incredible cmdrkeenkid thanks for showing us . When I look at Saturn I often wonder what it would be like if Earth had rings. They are so beautiful

Originally posted by Umbrax
When I look at Saturn I often wonder what it would be like if Earth had rings. They are so beautiful

I dont think you would want that...because it would make it harder for us to put satellites in orbit because the rings would destroy them. FYI saturn got its rings because if its enormous gravity pull and its moons in orbit over long periods of time get closer to the giant and literaly break up.

I thought the rings of planets were/are an unexplainable phenomena?

Originally posted by Aether
I thought the rings of planets were/are an unexplainable phenomena?

Thats the impression I was under as well..

The rings of Saturn have puzzled astronomers ever since they were discovered by Galileo in 1610, during the first telescopic observations of the night sky. The puzzles have only increased since Voyagers 1 and 2 imaged the ring system extensively in 1980 and 1981. In addition to the images, several Voyager instruments observed occultations of the ring system with radial resolution as fine as 100 meters. The rings have been given letter names in the order of their discovery. The main rings are, working outward from the planet, known as C, B, and A. The Cassini Division is the largest gap in the rings and separates Rings B and A. In addition a number of fainter rings have been discovered more recently. The D Ring is exceedingly faint and closest to the planet. The F Ring is a narrow feature just outside the A Ring. Beyond that are two far fainter rings named G and E. The particles in Saturn's rings are composed primarily of water ice and range from microns to meters in size. The rings show a tremendous amount of structure on all scales; some of this structure is related to gravitational perturbations by Saturn's many moons, but much of it remains unexplained.

So I guess there is some truth to both aspects

ringmaster.arc.nasa.gov...

really great photo!
these rings are really beautiful.

image if earth had rings around?
we would have a really nice view of the skies then!

Murcielago got it right about the rings' formation. There are other hypotheses about it, but that's one of the most accepted. The rings are also believed to be only a temporary phenomena.

As for Earth having rings like that? Thank God we don't, for the same reason Murcielago said before, plus another. We already have a spectacular few of the heavens. Most people just take it for granted, or live in too much of a light polluted area to see the skies. If Earth had rings they would only obscure our view.

beautiful.....just beautiful.

I wish I could live for 500 years, then I could maybe build a space ship and fly there.

Anyone know what created the asteroid belt?