The Big Foto » hubble http://thebigfoto.com Life stories in photos Tue, 22 May 2012 06:44:49 +0000 en hourly 1 Saturn from space http://thebigfoto.com/saturn-from-space http://thebigfoto.com/saturn-from-space#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:28:02 +0000 admin http://thebigfoto.com/?p=849 NASA’s Cassini mission has been orbiting Saturn for five Earth years as of June 30, 2009. That’s about one sixth of a Saturnian year, enough time for the spacecraft to have observed seasonal changes in the planet, its moons and sunlight’s angle on the dramatic rings.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant.

Saturn has a prominent system of rings, consisting mostly of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Sixty-one known moons orbit the planet, not counting hundreds of “moonlets” within the rings. Titan, Saturn’s largest and the Solar System’s second largest moon (after Jupiter’s Ganymede), is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the Solar System to possess a significant atmosphere. [Wikipedia]

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