Saturn and its exploration

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Named after the Roman god of agriculture, Saturn, its astronomical symbol represents the god's sickle.

The planet has 60 moons and is the least dense planet in the Solar System . Saturn is mostly a massive ball of hydrogen and helium with thousands of beautiful ringlets, made of chunks of ice and rock. These separate layers effectively insulate the planet and prevent heat from radiating out efficiently; this keeps Saturn warm and bright.”

NASA's Cassini orbiter is on an extended mission to explore Saturn and its rings, its magnetosphere and its moons particularly Titan and the icy satellites. Cassini also delivered Europe's Huygens probe to its historic landing on Titan in January 2005. The Huygens probe -- the first spacecraft landing in the outer solar system and the farthest from Earth. The 318 kg (852 pound) probe was designed to study the smog-like atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon Titan as it parachuted to the surface. It also carried cameras to photograph the moon's surface.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole. The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon ( April 2013).

The meteoroids that NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected crashing into Saturn's rings are comparable in size to the meteor that hurtled over Russia in February 2013.

Titan is the only other place in the solar system besides Earth that has stable liquid on its surface. Scientists think methane is at the heart of a cycle at Titan that is somewhat similar to the role of water in Earth's hydrological cycle - causing rain, carving channels and evaporating from lakes. The lakes must be dominated by methane's sister hydrocarbon ethane, which evaporates more slowly.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.