{"id":615,"date":"2012-04-01T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T00:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=615"},"modified":"2012-03-31T01:38:57","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T01:38:57","slug":"saturn-up-all-night-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/01\/saturn-up-all-night-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturn up all night"},"content":{"rendered":"

SkyCaramba weekly astronomy blog for the week ending April 7, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n

Saturn\u2019s at opposition this month. That means it\u2019s up all night and Earth is about as close to Saturn as it gets for about another year. The best view you\u2019ll get of the ringed planet in your telescope will be at opposition.<\/p>\n

\"Saturn<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s called opposition because the planet is at a place in the sky opposite the sun. It\u2019s easy to visualize Earth between the sun and Saturn. Of course, Saturn is much farther away from Earth and the sun. Saturn will be 8.7 Earth-sun distances (astronomical units) from us.<\/p>\n

The best known feature of Saturn is its rings. When Galileo saw Saturn in a telescope, he described it as having ears. He couldn\u2019t see the planet very well with the blurry optics of his time. But as the centuries went by, views became clearer. Astronomers first saw what looked like a solid belt around the planet. Cassini was the first to describe what appeared to be a dark line separating two belts. That\u2019s known as the Cassini division.<\/p>\n

Scientists weren\u2019t sure yet if the rings were solid belts or made of numerous chunks of rock orbiting the planet. They\u2019re sure today about the many small rocks but they\u2019re not sure if they\u2019re broken up moons that once orbited Saturn or are rock chunks that never came together as a moon.<\/p>\n

Earth and Saturn orbit the sun at different angles. That gives us slowly but dramatically changing perspectives on the planet. Sometimes, we\u2019re looking at Saturn edge-on and the rings practically disappear. That will happen in 2025. Other times, Saturn is tilted toward us so much, we get a somewhat broad view of the rings. The next time we\u2019ll get a broad view of the rings will be in 2017 and 2018.\u00a0 One pole of the planet will be hidden from the rings.<\/p>\n

There are 62 natural satellites orbiting Saturn. The largest is Titan and it\u2019s the second largest moon in the solar system. Titan\u2019s bigger than Mercury. It has an atmosphere that\u2019s 95% nitrogen. Saturn appears to have a muddy terrain with sand dunes. The sand could actually be water ice crystals. Winds on Titan are caused by Saturn\u2019s gravity tugging on the moon\u2019s atmosphere. Titan\u2019s the moon you\u2019re most able to see in a telescope.<\/p>\n

You can also try to spot Saturn\u2019s second largest moon, Rhea. It\u2019s airless and cratered like Earth\u2019s moon. Slightly unlike Earth\u2019s moon, Rhea has a few hints of color.<\/p>\n

Saturn\u2019s the only planet less dense than water. It would float in a pool if you could find a big enough pool to put it in!<\/p>\n

The Romans worshiped the god Saturn who oversaw agriculture. The day Saturday is named after him.<\/p>\n

Opposition time will be April 15 at 18:22 UT. You can see Saturn rising just after sunset in Virgo. It\u2019s close to the star Spica. The full moon will pass near them on April 6. Enjoy the view. \u00a1SkyCaramba!<\/p>\n

Links:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/nineplanets.org\/saturn.html<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.solarviews.com\/eng\/titan.htm\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.solarviews.com\/eng\/rhea.htm\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/mission_pages\/cassini\/media\/cassini-072104.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturn’s at opposition this month. That means it’s up all night and Earth is about as close to Saturn as it gets for about another year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[30,272,614,78,271,79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}