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If you are thinking about moving to the planet Saturn, you may want to think twice. The second-largest planet in our solar system, Saturn, is a giant ball of liquid hydrogen and helium. There is no land on Saturn, so vegetable gardens would be out of the picture. Saturn takes almost eleven hours to turn on its axis—so every time a day has passed on Earth, more than two days have passed on Saturn. Talk about never having enough time to get anything done! And because it is so far from the Sun, Saturn takes almost thirty Earth years to complete its orbit around the Sun—bad news if you like birthday parties!
On the other hand, if you were trying to lose weight, perhaps you would enjoy a trip to Saturn. If you could actually stand on Saturn, you would weigh less due to the lower density and weaker gravitational pull than on Earth. Instead of giving up candy and fast food, a little space travel could help you achieve the same result!
And if it is a view you are after, then you will have hit the jackpot. Saturn is surrounded by hundreds of beautiful multi-colored rings. Made up of fine dust, rock, and ice particles, these rings are thought to have been left by the debris from a collision between something in space and one of Saturn's moons.
But how do we know so much about a planet so far away? The answer is that we've gathered information with space probes. Space probes are space vehicles that carry equipment, but no people. Scientists on Earth can use computers to communicate with the probe, telling it to change its course, take a picture, or collect data. Probes can orbit a planet, place instrument packages on a planetary surface, or fly by one or more planets from as close as a few thousand miles.
The space probes Voyager I and Voyager II left for Saturn in 1977, and by 1980, they were taking pictures of the planet and its moons. Scientists could finally see Saturn's rings up close, and this helped them figure out how they were made. They also learned more about Titan, the second-largest moon in the solar system, and found that it is the only moon with a thick atmosphere and some chemicals necessary for life. A new space probe called Cassini was launched in October 1997, to orbit Saturn, take more pictures, and take a closer look at Titan.
So before you pack your bags and head out to the 6th planet from the Sun, you may want to reconsider and just look at the pictures.
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