Saturn's Mysteries Unveiled

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The planet Saturn, famous for its rings, is composed of densely packed gases, and boasts some 46 moons - more than any other planet.  Its largest moon, Titan, is a planetary satellite with a substantial atmosphere.

Saturn is in the news again because the Cassini-Huygens space probe has arrived in its vicinity after a journey of seven years. Its mission is to survey the ringed giant and its satellites.

In December 2004 Cassini sent down the Huygens probe on a suicide plunge to Titan, whose atmosphere, a smog of methane and other carbon compounds, makes it of special interest to scientists.  The south pole of this ice covered satellite is streaked with deep cracks which thermal sensors show to be hot spots with an atmosphere of water vapour.

Cassini's cameras have revealed a rolling suffocating atmosphere, characterized by huge thunderstorms the size of continental Europe.  Saturn's famous rings, first spotted by Galileo in 1610, are in a continuous state of change.  Far from being circles of tranquillity, the rocky debris of the seven rings bump and clump together and then pull apart under the gravitational influence of Saturn and its passing moons.

So next time you spy Saturn in the sky, picture in your mind seething clouds of gas and diverse moons.