Word: saturnian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...pitted from its encounter with the rings of Saturn, the Pioneer 11 spacecraft headed into deep space last week, its mission accomplished. In its sweep past Saturn, it had provided the best look yet at the solar system's second largest planet, discovered what is probably an eleventh Saturnian moon and two more rings. It also confirmed the existence of another ring and a magnetic field, and dimmed hopes that Titan, Saturn's largest moon, might harbor some form of life...
Further study of radiation data revealed that besides the fifth and sixth ("E" and "F") Saturnian rings observed a few days before in Pioneer photos, there was an outermost and tenuous seventh ring as much as 960,000 km (600,000 miles) from the planet. Other facts disclosed by Pioneer's telemetry: Saturn, as expected, has a magnetic field. But it is only 700 times stronger than the earth's, a fifth as intense as scientists had expected. Because this field traps particles radiated from the sun, Saturn has radiation belts that Pioneer detected as it neared...
...million km (2 million miles), showed both the giant ringed planet, a huge gaseous sphere 815 times larger than earth, and its major moon, Titan, where scientists have not entirely given up hope of finding evidence of primitive life forms. Pioneer also radioed data on two other Saturnian satellites (among ten known ones): lapetus, whose puzzling bright side seems to be crusted with ice, and Mimas, a similar icy moon. One surprise: there was far more debris in the wide gap between Saturn's outermost rings than could be seen from earth, but no trace of a fifth ring...