Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second-largest planet in the solar system. It has a whopping 63 official moons with another 20 awaiting confirmation of their discovery and subsequent naming.
It's the farthest planet from Earth that's visible to the unaided eye, but the planet's most outstanding features — its rings — are better viewed through a telescope.
Although the other gas giants in the solar system — Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune — also have rings, Saturn's rings are particularly prominent, earning it the nickname the "Ringed Planet."
Saturn is a gas giant made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. Saturn's volume is greater than 760 Earths, and it is the second most massive planet in the solar system, about 95 times Earth's mass. The Ringed Planet is the least dense of all the planets, and is the only one less dense than water. If there were a bathtub big enough to hold it, Saturn would float.
The yellow and gold bands seen in Saturn's atmosphere are the result of superfast winds in the upper atmosphere, which can reach up to 1,100 mph (1,800 km/h) around its equator, combined with heat rising from the planet's interior. Saturn rotates about once every 10.5 hours. The planet's high-speed spin causes Saturn to bulge at its equator and flatten at its poles. The planet is around 75,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) across at its equator, and 68,000 miles (109,000 km) from pole to pole.
SATURN'S RINGS
Galileo Galilei was the first to see Saturn's rings in 1610, although from his telescope the rings looked more like handles or arms. Forty five years later, in 1655, Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who had a more powerful telescope, later proposed that Saturn had a thin, flat ring.
As scientists developed better instruments, they continued to learn more about the structure and composition of the rings. Saturn actually has many rings made of billions of particles of ice and rock, ranging in size from a grain of sugar to the size of a house. The particles are believed to be debris left over from comets, asteroids or shattered moons. A 2016 study also suggested the rings may be the carcasses of dwarf planets.
SATURN'S MOONS
Saturn has 63 official moons and 20 more awaiting official confirmation. The largest, Titan, is slightly larger than Mercury, and is the second-largest moon in the solar system behind Jupiter's moon Ganymede (Earth's moon is the fifth largest).
Some of the moons have extreme features. Pan and Atlas are shaped like flying saucers; Iapetus has one side as bright as snow and one side as dark as coal. Enceladus shows evidence of "ice volcanism": a hidden ocean spews out water and other chemicals from the 101 geysers spotted at the moon's southern pole. A number of these satellites, such as Prometheus and Pandora, are referred to as shepherd moons because they interact with ring material and keep the rings in their orbits.
SATURN'S INFLUENCE ON THE SOLAR SYSTEM
As the most massive planet in the solar system after Jupiter, the pull of Saturn's gravity has helped shape the fate of our solar system. It may have helped violently hurl Neptune and Uranus outward(opens in new tab). Along with Jupiter, it might also have slung a barrage of debris toward the inner planets early in the system's history.
Scientists are still learning about how gas giants form, and run models on early solar system formation to understand the role that Jupiter, Saturn and other planets play in our solar system. A 2017 study suggests that Saturn, more so than Jupiter, steers dangerous asteroids away from Earth.
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idk if it’s just me or do things just seem extra shitty to the point where it’s like… weird? one of the worst natural disasters in recent history happening in turkey and syria, the train derailment in ohio, and apparently the u.s. shot down a bunch of “ufos” yesterday??
like what the actual fuck is going on this week
You're in a video game and the longer you passively tolerate the increasing cruelty and absurdity of the universe the lower your score
It's always been like this. Are you old enough to remember the tsunami back in... was it 2004? or Katrina? Or, hell, the floods in Pakistan last year.
sorry to make you feel old but i would’ve been a baby then :/
i guess early 2020 was kinda like this though between covid starting and the whole “ww3” panic
Gonna start calling people who take the balloon shit seriously "loonies".
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The lack of reporting on what’s going on in East Palestine Ohio is probably one of the most nefarious things I’ve seen by capitalist media in my life
More focus on UFO shit being shot down (obviously military equipment)
No judgement because I too live in the Imperial core, a feeble, insignificant tick feeding off of the rancid Great Satan, but American superbowl adverts are weird af ngl
Stop bringing up 9/11 and the troops and shit when you're trying to sell me medical insurance and tortilla chips, goddamn.
People buying in to US propaganda makes me so angry because we're never going to be able to fix things when smart educationed people who should know better are so easily suckered by the most transparent propaganda bullshit.
"The balloon had a bus sized payload" The balloon had long spars with solar panels on them. The actual payload was a few feet across at most, but they're describing it as bus sized to make it seem more sinister. This is clearly visible in the pictures
"The balloon could steer itself!" absolutely the fuck it could not. It's a big round balloon floating in the jet stream where winds are 200mph+. The fasted airship ever maxed out at 70mph and was a gigantic rigid hulled zeppelin with an aerodynamic shape and a bunch of big engines. There's no room for engines and turbines on the terror balloon and it would have to run entirely off the solar panels. It's just complete bullshit. Also a big round balloon is the worst shape for fighting against high speed winds.
help me comrades i have a funny post but it says score too low. you know what to do. upbear me plz.
:upbearmeplz: :sicko-hexbear:
:louverture-shining:
:stalin-heart:
Just watched White Noise (2022), about a train crash exploding toxic gasses over a town in northeastern Ohio. A couple of the extras were literally from East Palestine.
I quite liked the movie, nice reminder that imdb/rotten tomato scores are almost entirely meaningless when something like this is rated lower than something like Braven, which was the most recent totally worthless dog shit I've watched.
My parents back in my country have "moved" to living in a dugout because it's become increasingly hot to unbearable levels. They seem to not mind living underground and say it's preferable to living above.
It's one way to manage extreme temperatures. It was a common building style in a lot of parts of North America for a long time before modern frame houses become the norm everywhere. Once you heat up the walls the room stays warm for a long time. During the summer it takes a long time for the walls to get hot and they cool down in the evenings. I believe people in the great-plains regions used various kinds of dug-out and semi-dugout structures. It's a vast, flat region that can get very very cold in winter so having thick earth walls and semi-subterranean structures provides great thermal benefits. They were also used in some parts of Alaska for similar reason.
Modern earth houses are usually called "Earth Ships" in the US and a lot of crunchy hippy off grid self reliance people build them. They'll use old tires and things to build the structure of the walls then cover them with a few feat of earth. Others get dug in to hill sides. The extreme heating efficiency and lower cost than conventional materials, especially in places were transporting building materials is very expensive, is a big advantage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane-proof_building
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_shelter
Various kinds of earthships, dugouts, and rammed earth structures are going to be important this century as a building method that can resist the heat of climate change without requiring building materials like steel and concrete that contribute to climate change themselves. plus - dirt's cheap and if the climate is suitable you can build rammed earth structures almost anywhere.
There's also a revival of interest going on in Iranian, Middle Eastern, and North African passive temperature regulation systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_cooling
I'm sure SE Asia has it's own techniques, too, and I'd be shocked if Meso-American and American South-West cultures didn't develop their own solutions for extreme day-time heat.
In a lot of senses architects across the Eurasian continent solved the problem of passive temperature regulation in regions with extreme daytime temperatures a thousand years ago, but the techniques weren't incorporated by the colonizing European countries due to arrogance about European "superiority", contempt for local technologies and methods, and a belief that free energy would last forever. Europeans building European style houses and buildings in climates wholly unsuitable for them has resulted in cities all over the world that have vastly higher energy costs than they would if architecture suitable for the region and climate had been used instead. It's a major subject in sustainability research. Presumably if we take the existing, very mature techniques and technologies that have already been developed and combine then with some modern materials science and design we could come up with very efficient structures that would be very capable in the extreme heat coming alongside global warming, but as always Capitalism and the global poverty and profit motive it enforces stands in the way.
Fun fact: Igloos, the temporary hunting shelters of cut ice and hard-packed snow used by many communities north of the Arctic circle, rely on the same principles as earth buildings and dugout buildings. The snow layer provides significant insulation against loss of heat to the outside air, trapping heat inside the igloo. A fairly large igloo can be heated to sufficiently above freezing for comfort with a small heat source, traditionally a lamp powered by seal oil. Combined with the body heat of the occupants and the very efficient, well insulated clothing they use it allows for comfortable camping when on extended hunting trips away from permanent villages.
They're not nearly as widely used these days - Snowmobiles, planes, and boats allow for much faster and further travel than walking or dog sleds did in the past, while global warming has destroyed the thick sea-ice that made long hunting expeditions on the ice feasible in the first place.
I think you might have skipped a word? I can't figure out what the first sentence means
Is there a word for when you're assigned male at birth and you are okay presenting as male and do most of the time but also you are okay presenting as female and you think gender is silly and the cyborg manifesto is cool and also you are drunk??? Because if there is, that's what I am.
agender maybe? frankly that can be more or less whatever you want it to be
Lol, seems employers constantly jump around what job boards they use, probably to keep volume of applications down. But the latest one all the ones in my area jumped to won't let you apply unless you submit a picture of your face. How is this legal?
This Harry Potter thing has taught me that despite being a vegan I should buy burgers from McDonald's so fast food workers can make a living.
Elon Musk sitting next to Rupert Murdoch during the super bowl
lmfao if there was ever any doubt
Makes it even more funny when he insisted that he wasn't conservative
:disgost: The Loss Preventions officer at Walmart watching me draw a 4 panel webcomic
Literally all I use my griddle for, but it's very worth it. They are perfect every time.
