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Saturn is a gas giant, composed predominantly of hydrogen and helium. It lacks a definite surface, though it is likely to have a solid core. [ 37 ] The planet's rotation makes it an oblate spheroid —a ball flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator.
In astronomy, the rotation periodor spin period[1]of a celestial object(e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the sidereal rotation period(or sidereal day), i.e., the time that the object takes to complete a full rotationaround its axisrelative to the background stars (inertial space).
The magnetosphere of Saturn is the cavity created in the flow of the solar wind by the planet's internally generated magnetic field. Discovered in 1979 by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft, Saturn's magnetosphere is the second largest of any planet in the Solar System after Jupiter. The magnetopause, the boundary between Saturn's magnetosphere and the ...
Earth's rotation. Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own axis, as well as changes in the orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star Polaris, Earth turns counterclockwise . The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North ...
Saturn imaged in 2021 through a 6" telescope, dimly showing the polar hexagon. Saturn's polar hexagon was discovered by David Godfrey in 1987 [14] from piecing together fly-by views from the 1981 Voyager mission, [15] [16] and was revisited in 2006 by the Cassini mission.
Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 19th-largest in the Solar System. It is about 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter, [ 5 ] about a tenth of that of Saturn 's largest moon, Titan. It is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System.
Its sidereal rotation period (day) is roughly 16.11 hours. [11] Because its axial tilt is comparable to Earth's, the variation in the length of its day over the course of its long year is not any more extreme. Because Neptune is not a solid body, its atmosphere undergoes differential rotation. The wide equatorial zone rotates with a period of ...
In April of last year, Cassini spent 44 hours staring at Saturn's atmosphere and capturing in-depth images. The mission to Saturn is a joint venture between NASA, the European Space Agency and the ...