Word: saturnians
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Voyager 1's performance was the equal of the marvels it found. Commanded only by its own computers, the robot soared past the mysterious moon Titan, approaching to within 4,000 km (2,500 miles) of its shrouded surface. Gathering ever more speed under the tug of Saturnian gravity, it plunged downward toward the outer edge of Saturn's rings, swirling bits of cosmic debris. Reaching a peak velocity of 91,000 km (56,600 miles) per hour, Voyager skirted within 124,240 km (77,200 miles) of the planet's banded cloud tops for its nearest...
...most cursory study of Voyager's flood of data, scientists were staggered by a succession of discoveries. Many involved Saturn's rings, which until the recent finding of similar features around Uranus and Jupiter were thought to be unique. Before Voyager's visit only six Saturnian rings and a few gaps between them were known. Now there seem to be 1,000 rings or so. One of the so-called gaps may contain several dozen ringlets. Titan, the largest moon in the solar system, appears to be wrapped in a dense atmosphere of nitrogen vapors, rather than...
Even if those ambitions are not realized, Voyager 1's conquest of Saturn is already providing an unexpectedly rich scientific payoff from the $500 million program. Almost as soon as the spacecraft began closing on the Saturnian system, the pace of discovery accelerated dramatically. As early as last August, Voyager 1's cameras picked up a red spot in Saturn's southern hemisphere. Another one soon showed in the northern hemisphere. Though these features remind scientists of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a great whirling storm that has lasted for at least three centuries, Saturn...
...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...