Line #45 UsefulNotes/Saturn


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4	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saturn_equinox.png]]
5	[[caption-width-right:350:The Crown Jewel of the Solar System]]
6	[floatboxright:
7	'''Profile'''
8	* Diameter: 116,460 km
9	* Mass: 95 Earths
10	* Density: 0.687 g/cm³
11	* Surface Gravity at Cloud Tops: 1.07 g
12	* Semi-major Axis: 9.58 AU
13	* Orbital Period: 29 Years
14	* Rotational Period: 10 Hours
15	* Axial Tilt: 26.73°
16	* Average Surface Temperature: -139° C
17	* Notable Features: Saturn's Rings, Northern Polar Hexagon
18	* Number of Moons: 62
19	* Number of Total Missions: 4
20	]
21
22	->''"The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage."''
23	-->-- '''Mark Russell'''
24
25	The planet sometimes known as [[ShoutOut the Lord of the Rings]]. It is the furthest out of the five planets known to Earth observers from antiquity[[note]]although Uranus is barely visible with the naked eye under ideal conditions, there is no evidence that it was ever spotted by any ancient astronomers[[/note]], and the dimmest as a result (though it is still brighter than every star in the night sky except for Sirius and Canopus), although its famous rings were not known until telescopic observation by UsefulNotes/GalileoGalilei discovered them in 1610, though he believed them to be two other giant celestial bodies floating in tandem with Saturn. It wasn't until the 1650s that Christiaan Huygens (who also discovered Saturn's biggest moon, Titan) observed and that they were a ring floating separately from the planet.
26
27	Saturn is the 6th planet in the Solar System, the second most massive (about 95 Earth masses), and the second highest volume, though it's also the least dense (on average, it is less dense than liquid water). It is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium gas, with a solid rocky core in the center, and additional trace elements. Saturn's atmosphere, though looking bland in most far-away pictures, has intense cyclones and storms, and the second fastest winds in the solar system on average (after Neptune). Thanks to its 10.6 hour rotation, the planet bulges from centrifugal force, making it appear a little squashed.
28
29	The surface gravity on Saturn is 1.07 g, which is only 7% stronger than Earth despite being more massive. The reason for this disparity has to do with the planet's very low density. If you could stand on Saturn, it would only be about the equivalent of carrying around a moderately heavy backpack on Earth. It's often said that Saturn's low density is such that if you could somehow find a body of water large enough, and a means to put Saturn there, it would be able to float on its surface.[[note]]Although this would be essentially [[https://www.wired.com/2013/07/no-saturn-wouldnt-float-in-water/ impossible to do]], since the amount of water you'd need would be roughly equivalent to a sphere the size of the Sun, which would be massive enough to commence nuclear fusion and become a star. Alternatively, Saturn's rocky core would simply 'fall out' of the planet and into the water instead.[[/note]]
30
31	Saturn's orbit isn't perfectly circular; at perihelion, it's barely 9 A.U.[[note]]A.U. stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun[[/note]] from the Sun, but then it swings out until it's over 10 A.U. away from the Sun at aphelion. One complete orbit takes a hair under 29-and-a-half years.
32
33	Saturn's magnetic field is the second largest in the Solar System, and is probably generated by metallic hydrogen in the core of the planet. The plasma within the field primarily comes from the moon Enceladus, which shoots water through geysers in the south pole that is then ionized, while some other material comes from Titan, and a bit from other moons. Energy comes from both the solar wind and from Saturn's rotation, somewhat of a mixture of Jupiter's magnetosphere (where rotation supplies most of the energy), and other planetary magnetospheres (where the solar wind supplies almost all the energy). As with other Solar System bodies with magnetic fields, Saturn has its own aurorae. Despite its size, however, Saturn's magnetic field is actually slightly weaker than Earth's, and as such, contains less-potent Van Allen radiation belts. This actually makes the Saturnian system a much more promising place to colonize than most of Jupiter's moons.
34
35	Like the other giant planets, Saturn radiates more energy than it receives from the Sun; three times as much in this case. For Saturn this is because its cold temperatures and lack of density causes the helium in its upper atmosphere to condense into droplets, which then rain into the lower atmosphere, converting potential energy to kinetic energy.
36
37	Like Jupiter and Neptune, Saturn has its own iconic storm in the Great White Spot, a massive storm that appears approximately every thirty years and lasts for about one Earth year as Saturn approaches its summer solstice. Changes in the density of Saturn's cloud layers as its northern hemisphere receives extra heat from the Sun kicks up an enormous storm that can have varying width. Sometimes the Great White Spot is an oval, similar to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, and other times the Great White Spot can stretch out until it leaves a trail. In one instance, the Great White Spot's trail crossed almost the entire planet. Another iconic storm is Saturn's Hexagon, which is unique in the Solar System for two reasons: it lies on Saturn's north pole (while no other gas giant has a polar vortex), and its outermost layers are shaped like a perfect hexagon.[[note]]Apparently, the polygonal shape is a consequence of the centre and periphery of the storm rotating at different speeds, along with some interacting jet streams underneath.[[/note]]
38
39	It is very likely that the four terrestrial planets, and by extension humanity, have Saturn to thank for their continued existence. Current theories on solar system formation state that it is typical for large gas giants to migrate inward until they orbit extremely close to their stars, often close enough that a full revolution takes only weeks, or even days. Jupiter most likely would have done the same, destroying everything in its path via gravitational forces, if Saturn had not formed with sufficient mass and in the right position to yank Jupiter back, allowing the inner planets to continue forming. This migration also not only pushed Uranus and Neptune to their current positions, but had them ''swap'' positions (Neptune had originally been closer to the Sun than Uranus). The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tack_Hypothesis Grand Tack Hypothesis]] posits that this ''did'' happen, and that Jupiter rampaged through the inner Solar system on a path towards the Sun, robbing Mars and Ceres[[note]]Ceres is believed to be a "seed" of a fifth terrestrial planet that never achieved enough mass for orbital dominance because Jupiter swept away most of its accretion disk[[/note]] of material, launching planets towards each other or into the Sun, and very nearly reaching the location of the infant Earth, before Saturn's formation captured Jupiter in an orbital resonance that 'calmed' the King of the Planets, which reversed course from the effects of Saturn's gravitational pull and eventually reached its present orbital distance.
40
41	UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfSaturn are mostly crater-covered ice and rock balls, but the largest, Titan, has a thick atmosphere (about 1.5x the pressure of Earth's), and has a number of hydrocarbon lakes, erosion channels, rivers, and other surface features. Titan may also have ice volcanoes, or other geologic processes. Another moon, Enceladus, has the previously mentioned water geysers, as well as a global subsurface ocean of ''salt'' water, which makes it a '''possible''' marker for life. The moons of Saturn also help maintain some of the rings, by providing material through collisions, and gravitationally interacting with the rings to keep them stable.
42
43	!!The Rings
44
45	The rings of Saturn are composed of large numbers of ice and rock fragments, possibly formed from a collision of a moon that then never came back together, or possibly formed from material that was too close to Saturn to form a moon in the first place. These clumps often combine and then split, maintaining and redistributing material throughout the rings. Normally, when particles clump together, their tiny gravity is enough to make them keep accreting more and more material — this is how the planets formed in the first place. But the rings are so close to Saturn that the big planet's own gravity prevents this from happening. This magical distance from a large object, within which no gravitationally-held-together satellites can exist, is called the Roche limit.
46
47	Scientists still debate the age of the rings, which may be relatively recent (in Solar System terms), or may be almost as old as the Solar System. The most recent (2018) research suggests both the former and that they may be a short-lived (in astronomical terms again) feature of Saturn, that will disappear from the inside to the outside [[https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2018/ring-rain within the next hundred million years]].
48
49	The ring system actually consists of ''thousands'' of individual rings, each orbiting the planet at a slightly different distance. There are gaps where few or no rings exist, created by the gravitational interaction between the rings and the moons. The rings are extremely thin, no more than a kilometer thick from one side to the other and perhaps as thin as ''ten meters''. While a few of the fragments making up the rings are made of rock, almost all of the ring fragments are made of plain old water ice, ranging in size from 10 meters across all the way down to a centimeter across. All these chunks of ice and rock are packed into a relatively tight space, as well; Saturn's rings make for a better AsteroidThicket than the actual asteroid belt does.
50
51	Larger rock/ice balls around 10 km in diameter, called "shepherd moons", orbit along with the rings inside the ring plane. The tiny gravity of these moonlets is thought to keep the rings in line, hence their name.
52
53	Because of the density of the rings and Saturn's 27° axial tilt, they block out most of the sunlight from reaching Saturn's northern and southern hemispheres during their respective winter seasons, casting notable ring shadows that can be seen from space. These shadows increase in size until Saturn reaches its solstice periods, where they're at their maximum and cover most of the hemispheres, until they recede and form a very thin line at the equator during its equinox periods. It's presumed that the ring shadows have drastic effects on Saturn's climate, potentially affecting the frequency of storms on the enshrouded hemisphere.
54
55	!!Saturn (and its moons) have been visited by:
56	* ''Pioneer 11'' (UsefulNotes/{{NASA}}, flyby, launched 1973, passed Saturn 1979)
57	* ''Voyager''s ''1'' and ''2'' (NASA, flyby, launched 1977, passed Saturn 1980 & 1981 respectively)
58	* ''Cassini'' (NASA, orbiter, launched 1997, active 2004–2017)
59	** ''Huygens'' (UsefulNotes/{{ESA}}, Titan lander/atmospheric probe, deployed 2004, landed 2005): Accompanied ''Cassini''. Sent data for 90 minutes after touchdown.
60	* ''Dragonfly'' (NASA, Titan rotorcraft, planned launch 2028, planned landing 2034)
61
62	----
63	!!Saturn in fiction
64
65	[[AC:Comic Books]]
66	* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Diana, ComicBook/SteveTrevor and the Holliday Girls end up abducted and enslaved by telepathic Saturnian slavers. They then lead a SlaveRevolt and in subsequent interactions ensure the abolishment of slavery in the Empire of Saturn and secure an alliance between the Empire and the USA. The Saturnians seem to live on a moon and spend a lot of time in the rings rather than live or work on the surface of the planet they're named for.
67	* ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'': Saturn Girl and her people are a race of telepaths native to Saturn's moon Titan.
68	* ''ComicBook/MartianManhunter'': Prior to their fall the Martians made an attempt to colonize Saturn via a cloning process. It was partially successful; the Saturnians do not seem to be as powerful telepaths or shapeshifters as true Martians, but their society survived while the Martians went extinct.
69	* The people of Saturn and their dictator Rebo are the main enemy in the ''Saturn versus Earth'', Italy's first science fiction comic, with the planet itself being a recurring setting. As the comic dates to the 1930s, Saturn is depicted as Earthlike.
70	* ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse: the Italian miniseries "Donald versus Saturn" features Donald and Scrooge dealing with the Saturnians - the same ones as in ''Saturn versus Earth'', if in a more farcical form, thanks to the Disney comics rights for Italy being held at the time by the publisher of ''Saturn versus Earth'', that many Italian Disney writers and artists had read while growing up.
71
72	[[AC:Film - Live-Action]]
73	* In ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'', the wormhole leading to the Gargantua system is orbiting Saturn. [[spoiler:In the DistantFinale, a RingWorldPlanet named Cooper Station can also be found there]].
74	* In ''[[Film/FantasticFour2005 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer]]'', Saturn's rings are destroyed by [[ComicBook/{{Galactus}} Gah Lak Tus]] on its way to devour Earth.
75	* ''Film/SilentRunning'' takes place on board a freighter called the ''Valley Forge'' orbiting Saturn, carrying with it the [[GaiasLament last remaining plant life]] on Earth. When the protagonist Freeman Lowell mutinies against his fellow crewmembers in order to prevent the destruction of the plants, he sends the ''Valley Forge'' on a course that takes it straight into the planet's rings, damaging the spacecraft and resulting in the loss of one of the service robots whom he later reprograms to serve as his companions.
76
77	[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
78	* In the novel (not movie) version of ''[[Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries 2001: A Space Odyssey]]'', the monolith on the moon aims an intense radio beam at Saturn. The spacecraft ''Discovery'' was initially built to explore Jupiter, but due to this radio signal, the mission is re-routed to Saturn at the last minute.
79	* ''Literature/{{Larklight}}'': The GiantSpider First Ones are hiding out in the rings of Saturn, an environment which allows them to spin their webs between the ring particles.
80	* The protagonist ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' briefly stops by Saturn on his travels to leave the universe and commune with God. Unlike the other planets, none of the extra-dimensional spirits visiting the planet sing or smile because [[BrownNote the expression of their divine happiness would be intense enough to disintegrate our hero]].
81	* Grant D. Callin's ''Saturnalia'' focuses on Saturn and its moons, as a sort of cosmic ''Literature/TreasureIsland'' with colonists and Earthers hunting down alien artifacts.
82	* ''Literature/ThePuppetmasters'' come from Titan.
83
84	[[AC:Live-Action Television]]
85	* In "Evacuate Earth", a Magazine/NationalGeographic Channel special, Saturn is a SacrificialPlanet that gets ripped apart and consumed by the GravityScrew of a passing neutron star. The same thing happens to Earth a few years later, but fortunately TheArk had already launched by then.
86	* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
87	** In [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries TOS]]: "Tomorrow is Yesterday", Kirk and Spock allow John Chrisopher to return to 1969 Earth, despite his knowledge of the future, upon learning that his son will lead the first manned mission to Saturn.
88	** In [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]]: "The Best of Both Worlds", the invading Borg cube passes Saturn on its way to assimilate Earth.
89
90	[[AC:{{Music}}]]
91	* Music/NoDoubt's 2000 album ''Return of Saturn'' was named that because around that time the band members were all around 29 years old — one orbit of Saturn.
92	* Music/GustavHolst's "Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age" from "The Planets" movement.
93	* The ''Atlas: Space'' albums of Music/SleepingAtLast feature music themed around all the planets; "Saturn" is the most popular of them, with the message of it being that despite everything, TheWorldIsJustAwesome.
94	* ''Saturns Pattern'' is the title of an album and song by Paul Weller and references the Hexagon.
95	* Deathcore band ''Rings of Saturn'' named themselves and modeled their logo after the planet due to all of their songs being themed around space and extraterrestrials.
96	* Mike Banks' techno album ''X-102 Rediscovers the Rings of Saturn'' has many of its songs named after Saturnian moons of features of it as rings.
97
98	[[AC:TabletopGames]]
99	* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': In the far future, Saturn is the headquarters of the [[StateSec Imperial Inquisition]]'s Ordo Malleus.
100
101	[[AC:VideoGames]]
102	* ''VideoGame/{{Observation}}'' starts with a multinational space station mysteriously transported from Earth's orbit to above the polar hexagon, and the player has to find out why. Throughout the game hexagons appear everywhere as an ArcSymbol. Long story short [[spoiler: Saturn is some sort of multidimensional nexus]].
103
104	[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
105	* In ''Webcomic/{{Nebula}}'', the solar system is shown as a group of {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s, with Saturn being a quiet recluse (with some ExtremeDoormat tendencies) that Uranus and their other neighbors run roughshod over.
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Context UsefulNotes / Saturn