Saturn is the Roman name for the Greek god Cronus, father of all the gods. To the Greeks he was also the god of time, giving us the prefix chron, or chrono, meaning time. Because of the importance of time in the husbandry of crops and livestock, Cronus also became the god of agriculture. The Romans changed his name to Saturn, naming the sixth planet from the Sun after him, as well as the sixth day of the week. The Romans also instituted the festival of Saturnalia, a week long celebration in honour of the god Saturn, in which everyone was - temporarily - considered as equals, slaves and senators alike, and gifts were exchanged. The festival began on December 17, and over the centuries eventually evolved into the modern celebration of Christmas.

Saturn (Cronus) was born from the union of Gaia, (Mother Earth), and Uranus. Saturn was the youngest of the great Titans, the first brood of divine beings sired by Uranus with Gaia. When Gaia felt that Uranus was abusing his power, she fashioned a sickle from stone, and instructed Saturn to use it to kill his father, and take over his throne. Saturn complied, and as Uranus died, he prophesied that Saturn too would be brutally dethroned by one of his own progeny.

Saturn married his sister, Rhea, but was so afraid of his father's dying prophesy that he swallowed all his children as they were born, to prevent them from usurping him. After losing five children this way, Rhea hid their sixth son from Saturn, and named him Jupiter (Zeus). Like Gaia before her, Rhea counselled her son to take over his father's throne, and as Saturn and Jupiter fought, Saturn regurgitated the five children he had swallowed. Now Jupiter and his five siblings joined forces against their father Saturn and the rest of the Titans, and defeated them. Jupiter took over Saturn's throne and became king of the gods, fulfilling the prophesy of his grandfather, Uranus.

Every astronomer, amateur and professional alike, can remember the exact time and place they first saw Saturn, and its amazing rings, through a telescope. Just slightly smaller than Jupiter, with a diameter of 75,000 miles (120,000 km), Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system, sixth in line from the sun, and second of the gas giants that reside in the outer solar system, beyond the Aasteroid Belt.

Saturn is 892 million miles (1,427 million km) from the Sun, almost twice as far from the Sun as Jupiter, and almost ten times as far from the Sun as Earth. It is the last planet that can be discerned as such through a backyard telescope. The rest of the planets beyond Saturn are only star-like points of light in all but the largest telescopes.

Like Jupiter, Saturn spins incredibly fast for its huge size. One day on Saturn lasts only 10.2 hours. Its year on the other hand, lasts almost 30 Earth years.

Saturn's glory, of course, is its magnificent ring system. Although they appear solid, the rings are actually composed of countless chunks of dirty ice, ranging in size from microscopic to kilometer sized. The rings begin 4,200 miles (6,700 km) above Saturn's clouds, and extend all the way out to a distance of 300,000 miles (480,000 km). They are so thin - only a few hundred feet in most places - that seen edge on they are almost invisible. The above photo of the rings was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Click on photo for larger image.

Saturn has no less than 33 known moons. The largest, and most interesting is Titan. Titan has a diameter of 3,218 miles (5,149 km), making it larger than the planet Mercury, and if conditions are just right, you can see it in a backyard telescope as a pinprick of light off to the side of Saturn. It also has a thick atmosphere, the only object in the solar system other than Earth and Venus to do so, prompting much speculation as to the real possibility of it harbouring life. The photo below, of Titan shrouded in cloud, was taken by NASA's Cassini Spacecraft.

On Christmas Day, 2004, far out in the icy, inky depths of the outer solar system, a billion miles from Earth, two spacecraft completed their seven year journey together to the planet Saturn, and parted company. The larger craft, NASA's Cassini orbiter, went into orbit around Saturn to begin a three year mission gathering data and photos.

The smaller craft, ESA's (European Space Agency) planetary probe named Huygens, headed for Saturn's moon, Titan. Twenty days later, on January 14, 2005, it arrived. Firing reverse thrusters, the probe decelerated from over 11,000 mph (18,000 kph) down to 875 mph (1,400 kph). As it entered Titan's atmosphere, a series of parachutes slowed it finally to 13 mph (20 kph). Huygens broke through Titan's clouds at an altitude of 19 miles (30 kms), and took the overlapping greyscale photos below of its landing site. They clearly show hills and cliffs, with liquid carved channels flowing down to the shore of a sea. Since it is far too cold, -173 ° C, (-290 ° F ) for water to exist in a liquid form, these features are most likely formed by liquid methane.

As luck would have it, Huygens survived the hard landing, and for the next 72 minutes transmitted reams of data back to Earth, enough to keep scientists busy for years, including the first ever photo of the surface of Titan, shown below. The rocky surface, bathed in a ruddy glow from the refraction of the clouds, is eerily similar to Mars, and the rounded, eroded appearance of the rocks seems to confirm the presence of liquids.

History had just been made. Titan became the most distance world touched by human technology.

Enceladus

In March, 2006, the Cassini Spacecraft found something dramatic. It found water. And where there's water, there is at least the possibility of life. The water was found on Saturn's moon, Enceladus, erupting from the moon's surface in geysers like Yellowstone's Old Faithful. Unlike Old Faithful, however, the geysers on Enceladus extend 300 miles into space. The Cassini image below, captures some of these geysers, backlit by the Sun.

But since the moon is too far away to receive any heat from the Sun, liquid water should not be possible. The fact that it is can only mean that heat is being produced in the interior of the moon itself. The NASA graphic below illustrates how scientists believe the inside of Enceladus looks.