Lecture 40: The Saturn System
Saturn is attended by a system of 60 known moons and bright, beautiful\nrings. Today we will explore the moons of Saturn. Among the highlights\nare Saturn's lone giant moon, Titan, the 2nd largest moon in the Solar\nSystem and the only one with a heavy atmosphere. The atmosphere of\nTitan is mostly nitrogen with a little methane, but the temperature and\npressure are such that methane plays the same role on Titan that water\nplays on the Earth: it can be either a solid, gas, or liquid. The\nCassini and Huygens probes have recently shown that there is evidence of\nliquid methane flows and mudflats, and even liquid methane lakes as big\nas the Great Lakes or Caspian seas on Earth. The other moon of interest\nis Enceladus. The shiniest object in the Solar System, Enceladus has\nspectacular fountains - cryovolcanos - that spew water vapor from\nreservoirs created in its tidally-heated interior. This ice repaves\nmuch of the surface of Enceladus, giving it a young, shiny surface, and\nbuilds the E ring of Saturn. Recorded 2007 Nov 20 in 1000 McPherson Lab\non the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.