Astrological pundits are saying the planet Saturn just moved from the zodiac sign of Scorpio to Saggitarius last week. And of course the observation comes with predictions and how it is going to affect all of us. Considered to be a very influential planet, Saturn is much revered in astrology, and science is echoing the sentiment in more tangible ways. Carolyn Porco, planetary scientist, goes ecstatic saying, “Saturn is really part of and is also a metaphor for a much larger human voyage to understand the interconnectedness of everything around us, and also how humans fit into that picture.”
And she has reason to say so. “The Saturn system is a rich planetary system. It offers mystery, scientific insight and obviously splendour beyond compare, and the investigation of this system has enormous cosmic reach...just studying the rings alone, we stand to learn a lot about the discs of stars and gas that we call the spiral galaxies...Saturn is accompanied by a very large and diverse collection of moons. They range in size…Now, two of the 47 moons that Saturn has are stand outs. And those are Titan and Enceladus,” says Porco.
As her excitement is infectious she continues, ”Titan is Saturn's largest moon, and, until Cassini had arrived there was the largest single expanse of unexplored terrain that we had remaining in our solar system...It has a very large, thick atmosphere, and in fact, its surface environment was believed to be more like the environment we have here on the Earth, or at least had in the past, than any other body in the solar system. ”
But Cassini has brought some news. Porco tells us that Cassini has uncovered for us: dendritic drainage patterns that can be formed only by the flow of liquids. There is also a point of convergence of these drainage channels. It was obviously a shore, shore to some kind of liquid, perhaps liquid methane…in the south polar region Porco says they found a feature that could have been a lake. Further Porco tells us that some dunes have also been discovered on the surface of Titan.
If Titan was Saturn’s big moon, Enceladus is one-tenth its size and Porco says, “Enceladus is very white, it's very bright, and its surface is obviously wrecked with fractures. Moreover, this whole, entire region, the south polar region, has elevated temperatures. It's the hottest place on the planet, on the body. When we took additional pictures, we discovered that from these fractures are issuing jets of fine, icy particles extending hundreds of miles into space .” The image that Porco shows is much like a peacock feather in its colour scheme. She says, “...And we have arrived at the conclusion that these jets may be erupting from pockets of liquid water under the surface of Enceladus. So we have, possibly, liquid water, organic materials and excess heat…in other words, an environment that is potentially suitable for living organisms.”
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