Shadowed by Rings
The Planet's Rings Cast Dark bands,
dramatic shadows of rings on the north pole. If you are living in that region
(Lets' say), you will be eclipsed by the Rings. Moons seen here are
Tethys(front left), Dione(Front Right), Enceladus(Back Right). Image taken by
cassini spacecraft on 7th Dec,2007.
Light of the Day, Dark of the Night
Saturn is surely a gorgeous sight
of our solar system. Saturn's shadow streches completely on the night side of
things here. Saturn has 7 magnificent rings with gaps in between which are
called cassini divisions. Some gaps are really large at upto 4,700 km wide.
The largest ring spans 7,000 times the diameter of the
planet. Thinking that is small? You could actually fit approximately 760 earths
in Saturn. This image was assembled using 36 images taken over period of 2.5
hours by wide-angle camera on spacecraft cassini on Jan. 19, 2007 at a distance
of approximately 1.23 million km from Saturn. Image scale is 70 kilometers (44
miles) per pixel. Sunlit face vs dark night.
Saturn - Pale Gold
Saturn is made up of mostly
hydrogen, a small amount of helium, and then trace amounts of other compounds,
like ammonia, water vapor and hydrocarbons. These ammonica clouds give Saturn
the pale gold color. Clouds in Saturn's winter hemisphere are pale
blue. Yes, like earth, Saturn has seasons. And each season last for 7
years. This was Cassini’s view from orbit around Saturn on Jan. 2, 2010 from a
distance of 2.3 million km from the planet. On the day side, rings have been
illuminated by direct sunlight and reflective light from Saturn's cloud tops.
Huge Storm on Saturn
This image of the storm on saturn was
captured on captured on Feb. 25, 2011, a week after the storm began. Storm on Jupiter and Saturn
are common with speeds upto 1800 kmph at the equator. The largest of the storms
on saturn was great white spot which appear on Saturn every year. One Saturn year is 30 earth years.
Sreekanth Panjala
Science Popularizer | Author
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