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Saturn's hexagon was discovered during the Voyager mission in 1981, and was later revisited by Cassini-Huygens in 2006. During the Cassini mission, the hexagon changed from a mostly blue color to more of a golden color. Saturn's south pole does not have a hexagon, as verified by Hubble observations.
Saturn is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture, who was the father of the god Jupiter.Its astronomical symbol has been traced back to the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri, where it can be seen to be a Greek kappa-rho ligature with a horizontal stroke, as an abbreviation for Κρονος (), the Greek name for the planet (). [35]
The South Pole is at an altitude of 9,200 feet (2,800 m) but feels like 11,000 feet (3,400 m). [34] Centripetal force from the spin of the planet throws the atmosphere toward the equator. The South Pole is colder than the North Pole primarily because of the elevation difference and for being in the middle of a continent. [35]
On Saturn, like on Jupiter, the north magnetic pole is located in the northern hemisphere, and the south magnetic pole lies in the southern hemisphere, so that magnetic field lines point away from the north pole and towards the south pole. This is reversed compared to the Earth, where the north magnetic pole lies in the southern hemisphere. [13]
NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which explored Saturn and its icy moons, including the majestic Titan, ended its mission with a death plunge into the giant ringed planet in 2017. Cassini's radar ...
Like Jupiter, it is mostly made of hydrogen and helium. [176] At its north and south poles, Saturn has peculiar hexagon-shaped storms larger than the diameter of Earth. Saturn has a magnetosphere capable of producing weak auroras. As of 2024, Saturn has 146 confirmed satellites, grouped into:
And there’s the magnetic North Pole, which is always on the move. And right now it’s moving faster than usual. Over the past 150 years, the magnetic North Pole has casually wandered 685 miles ...
Ligeia Mare is the large body below the pole, and Punga Mare at half its size is just left of the pole. White areas have not been imaged. Lakes of liquid ethane and methane exist on the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. This was confirmed by the Cassini–Huygens space probe, as had been suspected since the 1980s. [2]