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Episode 3 of 6. Saturn
No planet beats Saturn for sheer jaw-dropping beauty. Majestic, mysterious, and massive, this giant is the pin-up boy of the Solar System. But delve deeper and you find a brooding monster – with supersonic winds, fearsome storms and nowhere to stand. Revolving serenely above it all are the dazzling rings, an entire system of glistening particles nearly as wide as the distance from the Earth to the Moon, yet no thicker than one or two storeys in a modern apartment building. Like cars on a celestial beltway, the ring particles race around Saturn at speeds of 60,000 kilometres per hour, but if you could park a spacecraft in orbit doing the same speed, it would be possible to pick up a ring particle in your hand.
Thanks to the continuing exploits of the Cassini-Huygens mission, one of the most successful robotic spacecrafts of all time, Saturn is being revealed to us like never before. The images alone were worth the trip, with stunning vistas of the rings, strange six-sided storms around the North Pole and similar, circular giants girdling the South.
But it is on Saturn’s many moons that the greatest adventures await. Of the 60-or-so satellites, it’s tiny Enceladus that is making all the headlines as the must-see destination these days. It’s the little moon that has it all. Enormous geysers shoot water and ice into space from a geothermal field the size of California. All indications are that the water is coming from a warm salty ocean hidden beneath the surface. We know the water is laced with organic material because the Cassini spacecraft, in unparalleled feats of precision flying, has flown through the plumes to sample them. Everything is pointing to an environment on Enceladus with a real possibility of being suitable for life.
Even more Earth-like and yet far more alien is Titan, with a thick atmosphere and weather. Potentially an easier surface to explore even than Mars, this is the only other world we know that you could visit without a spacesuit. Rug up for the cold and fly a hot air balloon in Titanian skies, trek across vast dune fields, or row across a Titanian lake. Just don’t fall in or get caught in the rain: it’s liquid natural gas out here, not water, and it’ll freeze you as hard as rock. Nothing is what it seems on Titan. Reach out and touch molten lava and you would not burn your hand, you’d freeze it.
All this and more, and only a billion miles from home! For the scientists of the Cassini-Huygens mission it has been the ride of a lifetime, and one they are keen to share, as they plan ahead for the second -alf of their travels in the Saturnian System.
The postcards Cassini has returned from Saturn have already confirmed that this is a planetary system as alien as one on the far side of the Galaxy and worthy of further, detailed exploration. So, strap in space travellers: it’s time for an adventure Ringside.