Learn about Saturn - The Gas Giant

Female Speaker: Saturn is the sixth major planet from the sun and it's one of the gas giants; second only in size to Jupiter. It has a central core made up of rock and ice, which is surrounded by hydrogen though to be in the form of a metal. The outer half of the planet consists of a deep atmosphere where hydrogen and helium exists in either a liquid or gas form. The most striking feature about Saturn is its spectacular ring system, which lies at an angle in the planets equatorial plane. But we still have a lot to learn about the planet and its many moons and it's hoped that the Cassini mission will review more of Saturn's secrets.

To cover the great distance is involved, the Cassini space craft is adopting a gravity assisted route, which uses the gravity of other planets to bend it's trajectory and give it acceleration. Cassini is launched on October 15, 1997 towards Venus. On June 1998, it had orbited the planet twice, then using its thrust as it blasted out of Venuses orbit faster and out towards to Jupiter and Saturn using each of the planets gravitational fields to pick up speed and direction.

By the year 2004, Cassini will be captured in orbit around Saturn and start it's task of collecting scientific data about the planet, its wings, it's satellites and the interactions between them.


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