Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Orbital Eccentricity, Orbital Inclination, Axial Tilt
23 Mar 2020
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Introduction: the most distant of the five planets easily visible to the naked eye from earth, has played "second fiddle" to its own rings since galileo first saw it in 1610. First spacecraft to visit saturn was pioneer 11 in 1979. Saturn has a small rocky core, a thicker metallic hydrogen inner mantle, and the rest is liquid hydrogen with an outermost 1000km thick layer of atmosphere. Atmosphere: no sharp distinction between atmosphere and planet. Storms are common, but the biggest appears to gave a 30-year cycle; the next should be due in. Largest particles are near the outer edge, the zone of least disruptive forces: the highly reflective particles of water ice that make up the rings are bright enough to outshine the ammonia clouds that top saturn"s atmosphere. If this is the case, the rings would always look bright and fresh.
