page_title: Saturn
section_title: Exploration
hierarchical_section_title: Saturn / Exploration
caption_attribution_description: English: Original Caption Released with Image: This is an artists concept of Cassini during the Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) maneuver, just after the main engine has begun firing. The spacecraft is moving out of the plane of the page and to the right (firing to reduce its spacecraft velocity with respect to Saturn) and has just crossed the ring plane. The SOI maneuver, which is approximately 90 minutes long, will allow Cassini to be captured by Saturn's gravity into a five-month orbit. Cassini's close proximity to the planet after the maneuver offers a unique opportunity to observe Saturn and its rings at extremely high resolution. Suomi: Ai vittu mun Cassini.
context_page_description: Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is one of the four gas giant planets, along with Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.
  Inside Saturn is probably a core of iron, nickel, silicon and oxygen compounds, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, then a layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium and finally, an outer gaseous layer.
  Saturn has 67 known moons orbiting the planet. 38 are officially named and 29 are waiting to be named. The largest moon is Titan, which is larger in volume than the planet Mercury. Titan is the second-largest moon in the Solar System. The largest moon is Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. There is also a very large system of rings around Saturn. These rings are made of ice with smaller amounts of rocks and dust. Some people believe that the rings were caused from a moon impact or other event. Saturn is about 1,433,000,000 km on average from the Sun. Saturn takes 29.6 Earth years to revolve around the Sun.
  Saturn was named after the Roman god Saturnus. Saturn's symbol is ♄ which is the symbol of Saturnus' sickle.
context_section_description: Saturn was first explored by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft in September 1979. It flew as close as 20,000 km (12,427 mi) above the planet's cloud tops. It took photographs of the planet and a few of its moons, but were low in resolution. It discovered a new, thin ring called the F ring. It also discovered that the dark ring gaps appear bright when viewed towards the Sun, which shows the gaps are not empty of material. The spacecraft measured the temperature of the moon Titan.
  In November 1980, Voyager 1 visited Saturn, and took higher resolution photographs of the planet, rings and moons. These photos were able to show the surface features of the moons. Voyager 1 went close to Titan, and gained much information about its atmosphere. In August, 1981, Voyager 2 continued to study the planet. Photos taken by the space probe showed that changes were happening to the rings and atmosphere. The Voyager spacecrafts discovered a number of moons orbiting close to Saturn's rings, as well as discovering new ring gaps.
  On July 1, 2004, the Cassini−Huygens probe entered into orbit around Saturn. Before then, it flew close to Phoebe, taking very high resolution photos of its surface and collecting data. On December 25, 2004, the Huygens probe separated from the Cassini probe before moving down towards Titan's surface and landed there on January 14, 2005. It landed on a dry surface, but it found that large bodies of liquid exist on the moon. The Cassini probe continued to collect data from Titan and a number of the icy moons. It found evidence that the moon Enceladus had water erupting from its geysers. Cassini also proved, in July 2006, that Titan had hydrocarbon lakes, located near its north pole. In March 2007, it discovered a large hydrocarbon lake the size of the Caspian Sea near its north pole.
  Cassini observed lightning occurring in Saturn since early 2005. The power of the lightning was measured to be 1,000 times more powerful than lightning on Earth. Astronomers believe that the lightning observed in Saturn is the strongest ever seen.
caption: Drawing of Cassini in orbit around Saturn
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