Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Equatorial Ridge, Red Giant, Death Star
15 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Last planet known to early astronomers until uranus was discovered in 1781. Need some magnifying instrument with at least 20x to see the rings of saturn. Galileo rst saw the planet in 1610. Thick high altitude haze layer (or cirrus-type-ammonia-ice crystals) shrouds the planet giving it a bland appearance. Pioneer 11: rst y-by is sept 1979, ew within 20 000 km of cloud tops, took temp of titan (the largest satellite, camera resolution wasn"t great so pics were low qual. Voyager 1 and 2: v1 passed the planet in 1980 and v2 in 198, provided data for recent cassini- Huygens mission: determined the hydrogen/helium ratio of the atmosphere, checked out winds, and atmosphere belt patterns, found auroras at the poles (thus planet has a magnetic eld, better pics of planet and rings. New horizons: space probe has proceeded through the jupiter system and has cut through the orbit of the saturn system as it sped on toward pluto.
