Saturn

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, its astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god's sickle. Saturn is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. While only one-eighth the average density of Earth, with its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive. Saturn has a prominent ring system that consists of nine continuous main rings and three discontinuous arcs, composed mostly of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Sixty-two known moons orbit the planet; fifty-three are officially named.


 * CONTENT : A - F, G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

Quotes

 * Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

A - F



 * Adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets, Saturn is unique among the planets. All four gas giant planets have rings -- made of chunks of ice and rock -- but none are as spectacular or as complicated as Saturn's. Like the other gas giants, Saturn is mostly a massive ball of hydrogen and helium. Ten important facts related to Saturn are: If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, the Earth would be the size of a nickel and Saturn would be about as big as a basketball; Saturn orbits our sun, a star. Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun at a distance of about 1.4 billion km (886 million miles) or 9.5 AU; One day on Saturn takes 10.7 hours (the time it takes for Saturn to rotate or spin once); Saturn makes a complete orbit around the sun (a year in Saturnian time) in 29 Earth years; Saturn is a gas-giant planet and does not have a solid surface; Saturn's atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen (H2) and helium (He); Saturn has 53 known moons with an additional 9 moons awaiting confirmation of their discovery; Saturn has the most spectacular ring system of all our solar system's planets. It is made up of seven rings with several gaps and divisions between them; Five missions have been sent to Saturn; Since 2004, Cassini|Cassini has been exploring Saturn, its moons and rings; Saturn cannot support life as we know it. However, some of Saturn's moons have conditions that might support life; When Galileo Galilei looked at Saturn through a telescope in the 1600s, he noticed strange objects on each side of the planet and drew in his notes a triple-bodied planet system and then later a planet with arms or handles. The handles turned out to be the rings of Saturn.
 * National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in:Saturn: Overview, NASA
 * Discovered by the ancients, Saturn has an orbit size around the sun of 1,426,666,422 km (886,489,415 miles); is 9.537 times the size of the earth; its perihelion (closest) is : 1,349,823,615 km (838,741,509 miles) is 9.176x Earth; Aphelion (farthest) is 1,503,509,229 km (934,237,322 miles), 9.885 x Earth; Sidereal Orbit Period (Length of Year) is 29.447498 Earth years (10,755.70 Earth days), 29.447 x Earth; Orbit Circumference is 8,957,504,604 km (5,565,935,315 miles), 9.530 x Earth; its Average Orbit Velocity is 34,701 km/h (21,562 mph, is 0.324 times of earth’s orbit velocity; orbit eccentricity is 0.05386179 which is 3.223 x Earth; its Orbit Inclination is 2.49 degrees; Equatorial Inclination to Orbit is 26.7 degrees; it has a mean radius of 58,232 km (36,183.7 miles), 9.1402 x Earth; has an  Equatorial Circumference of 365,882.4 km (227,348.8 miles), 9.1402 x Earth; its volume is 8.2713 x 1014 km3, 763.594 x Earth; it has a Mass of, 95.161 x Earth; its Density is 0.687 g/cm3, 0.125 x Earth; its surface area measures 4.2612 x 1010 km2 which is 83.543 x Earth;  it has a Surface Gravity 10.4* m/s2 (34.3 ft/s2 )_( 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh about 107 pounds on Saturn); has an  Escape Velocity Of 129,924 km/h (80,731 mph), Escape velocity of Earth is 25,030 mph; Sidereal Rotation Period (Length of Day) is 0.444 Earth days (10.656 hours}, 0.445 x Earth; its Effective Temperature is 178 °C (288 °F) and scientific notation is 95 K; its Atmospheric Constituents are Hydrogen (H2), Helium (He) while Earth's atmosphere consists mostly of N2 and O2.
 * National Aeronautics and Space Administration in: Saturn: Facts & Figures, NASA


 * Each planet takes a certain amount of time to travel thru all 12 signs and return to its original position in any given chart. The Moon takes only a month. The Sun takes a year. … Mercury and Venus stay close to the Sun, so their cycles through all signs are close to the Sun’s. Mars takes longer about two years...Jupiter takes about 12 months to complete a full cycle thru all 12 signs. Saturn takes 28-30 years to complete a full cycle. Because Saturn is a symbol of the wisdom which grows with age, its cycle is particularly important in reflecting our development. Every seven years, Saturn completes a a quarter of the cycle, and we move into a new stage of awareness.
 * Marc Allen in: Astrology for the New Age: An Intuitive Approach. New World Library, 18 December 2011, p. 64


 * The astrologers and historians write that the ascendant as of Oxford is Capricornus, whose lord is Saturn, a religious planet, and patron of religious men.
 * John Aubrey in: John Aubrey and the realm of learning, Science History Publications, 1 September 1975, p. 122


 * I came into the world under the sign of Saturn -- the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays.
 * Walter Benjamin in: Susan Sontag Under the Sign of Saturn: Essays, Macmillan, 1 October 2013, p. 111


 * We must believe then, that as from hence we see Saturn and Jupiter; if we were in either of the two, we should discover a great many Worlds which we perceive not; and that the de Bergerac]] in: Cyrano de Bergerac, Archibald Lovell, Curtis Hidden Page A Voyage to the Moon, Doubleday and McClure Company, 1899, p. 32


 * The star [Tycho's supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air,pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, and there will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment and all sorts of sad things.
 * Tycho Brahe in: Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy, Cambridge University Press, 10 February 2011, p. 336


 * Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus, with thy faults, nor make Saturn, Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy Follies. Think not to fasten thy imperfections on the Stars, and so despairingly conceive thy self under a fatality of being evil.
 * Thomas Browne in: Religio medici, urn burial, and Christian morals, Moreton, 1894, p. 192


 * You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.
 * John Buchan in:TheLiving Age, Volume 280, Littell, Son and Company, 1914, p. 237


 * In the night sky Saturn is easily visible to the unaided eye as a non-twinkling point of light. When viewed through even a small telescope, the planet, encircled by its magnificent rings, is arguably the most sublime object in the solar system. Saturn is designated by the symbol ♄ .... Saturn’s name comes from the Roman god of agriculture, who is equated with the Greek deity Kronos, one of the Titan and the father of Zeus (the Roman god Jupiter). As the farthest of the planets known to ancient observers, Saturn also was noted to be the slowest-moving ...Italy:Italian astronomer Galileo in 1610 was the first to observe Saturn with a telescope. Although he saw a strangeness in Saturn’s appearance, the low resolution of his instrument did not allow him to discern the true nature of the planet’s rings....Saturn’s structure and evolutionary history, however, differ significantly from those of its larger counterpart. Like the other giant, or Jovian planets—Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune Saturn has extensive systems of moons (natural satellites) and rings, which may provide clues to its origin and evolution as well as to those of the Solar System|solar system. Saturn’s moon Titan is distinguished from all other moons in the Solar System by the presence of a significant atmosphere, one that is denser than that of any of the terrestrial planets except Venus.
 * Bonnie Buratti in: Saturn, Encyclopedia Britannica, December 2014
 * The greatest advances in knowledge of Saturn, as well as of most of the other planets, have come from deep-space probes. Four spacecraft have visited the Saturnian system: Pioneer 11 in 1979, Voyagers 1] and 2 in the two years following, and, after almost a quarter-century,, which arrived in 2004. The first three missions were short-term flybys, but Cassini -Huuygens|Cassini-Huygens went into orbit around Saturn for years of investigations, while its Huygens probe parachuted through the atmosphere of Titan and reached its surface, becoming the first spacecraft to land on a moon other than Earth’s..
 * Bonnie Buratti in "Saturn"


 * I wol yow telle, as was me taught also, The foure spirites and the bodies sevene, By ordre, as ofte I herde my lord hem nevene. The firste spirit quiksilver called is, The seconde orpyment, the thridde, ywis, Sal armonyak, and the firthe brimstoon. The bodys sevene eek, lo! hem heer anoon: Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe, Mars iren, Mercurie quyksilver we clepe, Saturnus leed, and Jupiter is tyn, And Venus coper, by my fader kyn!
 * Geoffrey Chaucer in: The Riverside Chaucer, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 273.


 * Saturn Return would be caused by the planet Saturn returning to its original birth position in the sky, thus energetically influencing the individual’s multi energy dimensional system.
 * Barbara Hand Clow in: Liquid Light of Sex: Kundalini, Astrology, and the Key Life Transitions, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, Sep 1, 2001, p. 8


 * The universe is globe-shaped, either because that is the most perfect shape of all, needing no joint, an integral whole; or because that is the most capacious of shapes, which is most fitting because it is to contain and preserve all...The first and highest of all is the sphere of the fixed stars, which contains itself and all things, and is therefore motionless. It is the location of the universe, to which the motion and position of all the remaining stars is referred. For though some consider that it also changes in some respect, we shall assign another cause for its appearing to do so in our deduction of the Earth's motion. There follows Saturn, the first of the wandering stars, which completes its circuit in thirty years. After it comes Jupiter which moves in a twelve-year long revolution. Next is Mars, which goes round biennially. An annual revolution holds the fourth place, in which as we have said is contained the Earth along with the lunar sphere which is like an epicycle. In fifth place Venus returns every nine months. Lastly, Mercury holds the sixth place, making a circuit in the space of eighty days. In the middle of all is the seat of the Sun. For who in this most beautiful of temples would put this lamp in any other or better place than the one from which it can illuminate everything at the same time? Aptly indeed is he named by some the lantern of the universe, by others the mind, by others the ruler. Trismegistus called him the visible God, Sophocles' Electra, the watcher over all things. Thus indeed the Sun as if seated on a royal throne governs his household of Stars as they circle around him. Earth also is by no means cheated of the Moon's attendance, but as Aristotle says in his book On Animals the Moon has the closest affinity with the Earth. Meanwhile the Earth conceives from the Sun, and is made pregnant with annual offspring. We find, then, in this arrangement the marvellous symmetry of the universe, and a sure linking together in harmony of the motion and size of the spheres, such as could be perceived in no other way. For here one may understand, by attentive observation, why Jupiter appears to have a larger progression and retrogression than Saturn, and smaller than Mars, and again why Venus has larger ones than Mercury; why such a doubling back appears more frequently in Saturn than in Jupiter, and still more rarely in Mars and Venus than in Mercury; and furthermore why Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are nearer to the Earth when in opposition than in the region of their occultation by the Sun and re-appearance. Indeed Mars in particular at the time when it is visible throughout the night seems to equal Jupiter in size, though marked out by its reddish colour; yet it is scarcely distinguishable among stars of the second magnitude, though recognized by those who track it with careful attention.
 * Nicolaus Copernicus on the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres quoted in: Károly Simonyi A Cultural History of Physics, CRC Press, 25 January 2012, p. 180
 * We find then in this arrangement an admirable harmony of the world, and a dependable, harmonious interconnexion of the motion and the size of the paths, such as otherwise cannot be discovered. For here the penetrating observer can note why the forward and the retrograde movement of Jupiter appears greater than that of Saturn, and smaller than that of Mars, and again greater with Venus than with Mercury; and why such retrogression appears oftener with Saturn than with Jupiter, less often with Mars and Venus than with Mercury. Moreover, why Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, when they rise in the evening, appear greater than when they disappear and reappear [with the sun]...And all this results from the same cause, namely the motion of the earth.
 * Nicolaus Copernicus quoted in: Edwin Arthur Burtt The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science: A Historical and Critical Essay, Routledge, Jun 23, 2014, p. 45


 * There's something strange going on below the surface of Saturn's )|Death Star-looking moon Mimas. Mimas' rotation and its orbit around Saturn make the moon look like it's rocking and back forth and oscillating similar to the way a pendulum swings. The rocking motion is called Llibration, and it's commonly observed in moons that are influenced by the gravity from neighboring planets. However, using images of the moon captured by the Cassini spacecraft, Radwan Tajeddine, a research associate at Cornell University, discovered that the satellite's libration was much more exaggerated in one spot than predicted.
 * Kelly Dickerson in: Saturn's 'Death Star' moon Mimas is weird inside, Fox News, October 17, 2014


 * The Solar System consists of eight "planets" Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. A new distinct class of objects called "dwarf planets" exist. "Planets" and "dwarf planets" are two distinct classes of objects. The first members of the "dwarf planet" category are Ceres, Pluto and 2003 UB313 (temporary name).
 * Definition by International Astronomical Union (IAU) in: News Release,IAU


 * The word planet comes from the Greek for “wanderer,” because the planets' positions change relative to those of the stars. The eight (formerly nine) recognized planets that orbit the Sun are, in order of increasing distance, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The first four are called terrestrial planets and the next four giant, or Jovian, planets.
 * Merriam Webster Dictionary in: planet, merriam-webster.com
 * Saturn seems to have impre\ssed the seal of melancholy on me from the beginning.
 * Marsilio Ficino in: Juliana Schiesari The Gendering of Melancholia: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance Literature, Cornell University Press, 1992, p. 114

G - L

 * I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round Saturn.
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in: Rev. James Wood Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources:, Warne, 1893, p. 166


 * I was, I remember, I still remember when the first time I pointed the telescope at the sky and I saw Saturn with the rings. It was a beautiful image. And that really made my mind to become a scientist. And that was the first step in order to become an astronaut, of course.
 * Umberto Guidoni in: Preflight Interview: Umberto Guidoni, NASA


 * Galileo claimed to have seen mountains on the Moon, to have proved the Milky Way was made up of tiny stars, and to have seen four small bodies orbiting Jupiter. These last, with an eye to getting a position in Florence, he quickly named 'the Mediciean Stars. But when all was finished, no one besides my brother could get a glimpse of Jupiter or Saturn, for the great length of the tube would not allow it to be kept in a straight line. This difficulty, however, was soon removed by substituting tin tubes.
 * William Herschel in: Mary Cornwallis Herschel, Caroline Lucretia Herschel Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel, 1879, p. 35


 * There is not perhaps another object in the heavens that presents us with such a variety of extraordinary phenomena as the planet Saturn: a magnificent globe, encompassed by a stupendous double ring: attended by seven satellites: ornamented with equatorial belts: compressed at the poles: turning upon its axis: mutually eclipsing its ring and satellites, and eclipsed by them: the most distant of the rings also turning upon its axis, and the same taking place with the farthest of the satellites: all the parts of the system of Saturn occasionally reflecting light to each other: the rings and moons illuminating the nights of the Saturnian: the globe and satellites enlightening the dark parts of the rings: and the planet and rings throwing back the sun's beams upon the moons, when they are deprived of them at the time of their conjunctions.
 * Sir William Herschel (1805) in: Knowledge...: A Monthly Record of Science, Volume 5, Wyman and sons, 1884, p. 203


 * August 28, 1780, having brought the telescope to the parallel of Saturn, I discovered a sixth satellite of that planet; and 'l also saw the spots upon Saturn better than I had ever seen them before; so that I may date the finishing of the forty~feet telescope from that time.
 * William Herschel in: John TIMBS Stories of Inventors and Discoverers in Science and the Useful Arts … With illustrations, 1860, p. 164


 * I shall explain a System of the World differing in many particulars from any yet known, answering in all things to the common Rules of Mechanical Motions: This depends upon three Suppositions. First, That all Cœlestial Bodies whatsoever, have an attraction or gravitating power towards their own Centers, whereby they attract not only their own parts, and keep them from flying from them, as we may observe the Earth to do, but that they do also attract all the other Cœlestial bodies that are within the sphere of their activity; and consequently that not only the Sun and Moon have an influence upon the body and motion the Earth, and the Earth upon them, but that Mercury also Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter by their attractive powers, have a considerable influence upon its motion in the same manner the corresponding attractive power of the Earth hath a considerable influence upon every one of their motions also. The second supposition is this, That all bodies whatsoever that are put into a direct and simple motion, will continue to move forward in a straight line, till they are by some other effectual powers deflected and bent into a Motion, describing a Circle, Ellipse, or some other more compounded Curve Line. The third supposition is: That these attractive powers are so much the more powerful in operating, by how much the nearer the body wrought upon is to their own Centers. Now what these several degrees are I have not yet experimentally verified; but it is a notion, which if fully prosecuted as it ought to be, will mightily assist the Astronomer to reduce all the Cœlestial Motions to a certain rule, which I doubt will never be done true without it. He that understands the nature of the Circular Pendulum and Circular Motion, will easily understand the whole ground of this Principle, and will know where to find direction in Nature for the true stating thereof. This I only hint at present to such as have ability and opportunity of prosecuting this Inquiry, and are not wanting of Industry for observing and calculating, wishing heartily such may be found, having myself many other things in hand which I would first complete and therefore cannot so well attend it. But this I durst promise the Undertaker, that he will find all the Great Motions of the World to be influenced by this Principle, and that the true understanding thereof will be the true perfection of Astronomy.
 * Robert Hook in: Jean Baptiste Biot Life of Sir Isaac Newton [tr. by sir H.C. Elphinstone, 1829, p. 16


 * The Pythagorean harmony of the spheres lives on to this day. In his Natural History (circa AD77), the Roman scientist and noble man Pliny the Elder considered formed by the earth and Moon to be a tone; Moon to Mercury a semi-tone; Mercury to Venus, a semi-tone; Venus to the Sun, a minor third; Sun to Mars, a tone, Mars to Jupiter, a semi-tone; Jupiter to Saturn, a semi-tone; and Saturn to the fixed stars, a minor third. The 'Pythagorean Scale' created from this musical arrangement is still recognised. And Pliny's report reveals not only a heavenly musical scale, but also a Cosmic architecture that was to have a profound influence on the history of astrobiology. The story goes that only the master, Pythagoras, was graced with the gift of actually hearing this harmony of the spheres.
 * Christian Huygens in: Mark Brake Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology, Cambridge University Press, 8 November 2012, p. 8
 * To the ancient eye, without the use of spyglass, only seven of these ‘wanderers’ or ‘planets’ as they were known, could be seen among the thousands of lights that bejewelled the firmament. The 'Wanderers' were different. True, like the fixed stars, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all seemed to revolve once a day around the Earth. But the Plants also had a peculiar motion.
 * Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 9


 * ...cosmos was complete. Its out limit was the stellar sphere. Just inside was Saturn, since it was the planet that took longest to move around the Zodiac. Next came Jupiter and Mars, set in order of decreasing orbital period, the time taken to make one complete orbit about the central Earth. Innermost was the Moon, since the lunar orbit placed it closest to us. The remaining three planets of Sun, Venus and Mercury, posed a problem. All three vagabond stars made their seeming journey about the Earth, in the same common time of one year.
 * Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 11


 * The term ‘superior planet’ was used by those bodies (Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) that lay behind the Sun’s orbit. The system gave no idea of the sheer size of the orbits, and no account of inconsistencies of the planets in their apparent motion. But these mathematical features were to develop later.
 * Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 11


 * Attendants of Jupiter and Saturn are of the same nature with our Moon, as going round them, and being carry'd with them round the Sun just as the Moon is with the Earth. Their Likeness reaches to other things too,...Therefore whatsoever we can with reason affirm or fancy of our Moon must be supposed with very little alteration to belong to the Guards of Jupiter and Saturn, as having no reason to be at all inferior to that.
 * Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 112


 * If the Moon is not inhabited, as observations suggest based on the absence of water and an atmosphere, this says little about life on other worlds, save for those of similar rank, i.e., other moons. Which means that other planets, especially those superior and majestic worlds, such as Saturn and Jupiter, should be equal in all ways to the Earth, intelligent inhabitants included.
 * Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 112


 * Featured in his Celestial Scenery (1837), Dick discusses the cosmos, as seen from Mars, Jupiter, the planetoids, and beyond. Using a method similar to that of Huygens, Dick takes the topic further still, allotting populations to all the planetary bodies of the solar system, and even for the rings of Saturn, a rather arresting idea.
 * Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 146


 * Rather under-represented in moons, petite in mass and magnitude, Earth does not fare well in comparison with gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, and especially the Sun. Rejecting the idea the giant planets are poorly placed, Flammarion even so admits atmospheres of other plants are ‘essentially different’, from those on Earth, as there is no evidence extant to show they are ‘of a chemical composition analogous to our planet.
 * Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 193


 * I can't say they are exactly of the same nature with our Water; but that they should be liquid their use requires, as their beauty does that they be clear. For this Water of ours, in Jupiter or Saturn, would be frozen up instantly by reason of the vast distance of the Sun.
 * Christiaan Huygens in: Mark Brake Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology, Cambridge University Press, 8 November 2012, p. 111


 * But it is a very remarkable circumstance, that an acquaintance with the seven days of the week, so familiar from remote antiquity to the people who originally spoke Sanskrit language, though unknown to the Greeks and Romans, should have been preserved among the Germans. It is true, indeed, that among them the days received their names from their principal deities, and not merely from the planets, which, in Hindu mythology, are considered only as celestial beings of an inferior description. There seems, also, to be no doubt that Germans selected the names of the same planets to designate the days of the week, which have been immemorially used for the same purpose by the Hindus; and that, in both Germany and India, their consecutive order was the day of the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.
 * Vans Kennedy in: Researches Into the Nature and Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology by Vans Kennedy, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831, p. 396-97


 * Each planet, according to its dimension, has a certain length of planetary life, the youth and age of which include the following eras :- a Sun like state; a state like that of Jupiter or Saturn, but when much heat but little light is evolved; a condition like that of our earth; and lastly, the stage through which our Moon is passing, which may be regarded as planetary decrepitude.
 * Proctor in Christian Huygens in: “Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology”, p. 185


 * The orbit of the earth is a circle; round the spheres to which this circle belongs describe a dodecahedron; the spheres including this will give the orbit of Mars. Round Mars describe a tetrahedron; the circle including this will be orbit of Jupiter. Describe a cube round Jupiter’s orbit; the circle including this will be Saturn. Now, inscribe in the earth’s orbit an icosahedron, the circle inscribed in it will be the orbit of Venus: inscribe an octahedron in the orbit of Venus: the circle inscribed in it will be Mercury’s orbit. This is the reason of number of planets.
 * Kepler in his first published work Mysterium Cosmographicum (1597) quoted in: Concepts in Physical Science, Education Resources Information Center (eric.ed.gov), p. 11


 * When the movement of the comets is considered and we reflect on the laws of gravity, it will be readily perceived that their approach to Earth might there cause the most woeful events, bring back the deluge, or make it perish in a deluge of fire, shatter it into small dust, or at least turn it from its orbit, drive away its Moon, or, still worse, the Earth itself outside the orbit of Saturn, and inflict upon us a winter several centuries long, which neither men nor animals would be able to bear. The tails even of comets would not be unimportant phenomena, if in taking their departure left them in whole or part in our atmosphere.
 * Johann Heinrich Lambert, in: Amédée Victor Guillemin The heavens [tr. by W. Lockyer ed. by J.N. Lockyer ], 1876, p. 259


 * Six giant storms, called s, have erupted on Saturn since 1876 at intervals of about 30 years. The most recent one occurred on Dec. 5th, 2010 at planetographic latitude 37.7ºN. It produced intense lightning, created enormous cloud disturbances and wrapped around the planet in 6 months.
 * Cheng Li,

M - R



 * Wide are the meadows of night And daisies are shining there, Tossing their lovely dews, Lustrous and fair; And through these sweet fields go, Wanderers amid the stars — Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.
 * Walter De La Mare in: Kate Louise Roberts Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, 1922, p. 750


 * I have been battering away at Saturn, returning to the charge every now and then. I have effected several breaches in the solid ring, and now I am splash into the fluid one, amid a clash of symbols truly astounding. When I reappear it will be in the dusky ring, which is something like the state of the air supposing the siege of Sebastopol conducted from a forest of guns 100 miles one way, and 30,000 miles the other, and the shot never to stop, but go spinning away round a circle, radius 170,000 miles.
 * James Clerk Maxwel in: Sir Richard Glazebrook James Clerk Maxwell and modern physics, Macmillan, 1896, p. 49


 * Science is the part of NASA that's actually conducting interesting and scientifically important missions. Spacecraft sent to Mars, Saturn, Mercury, the Moon, comets, and asteroids have been making incredible discoveries, with more to come from recent launches to Jupiter, the Moon, and Mars. The country needs more of these robotic space exploration missions, not less.
 * Bill Nye in: NASA Budget Pushes Science to the Brink, planetary.org
 * Below Saturn is the well known group, the Sickle, part of the constellation of Leo. The elevation of the plane of Saturn's rings above the earth is increasing slightly at present, being now 15°, so that the rings are coming into better position for observation. The outer major axis of the rings is a little over 45 inches.
 * The Obsevatory in: The Sidereal Messenger: A Monthly Review of Astronomy, Volume 8, The Obsevatory, 1889, p. 81


 * It’s amazing to me that not only can we put a probe around Saturn and get images of its moons, but our math and physics are so freaking accurate we can say, "Hey, you know what? On this date at this time if we turn Cassini that way we’ll see a moon over 2 million kilometers away pass in front of another one nearly 3 million kilometers away.
 * Phil Plait in: marvelous night for a (Saturn) moon dance, discovermagazine.com, 10 February 2010


 * The Spirits survey the heavens and the earth and all the harmonious motions of the universe. They see the heavenly bodies set in revolving whorls, which, whorl within whorl, combine to form the Spinning-whorl on the Spindle of Necessity; and the Goddess holds the spindle on her knee, and spins the thread which the Fates wind, unwind and cut. The heavenly bodies, or the spheres or whorls in which they lie, are arranged one within another in the following order: 1. The Fixed Stars. 2. Saturn. 3. Jupiter. 4. Mars. 5. Mercury. 6. Venus. 7. The Sun. 8. The Moon. This order is as good as any other that can be framed under a geocentric hypothesis
 * Plato in: The Observatory, Volume 27, Editors of the Observatory, 1904, p. 364


 * As the whorls differ from one another in respect of “ breadth of rim”, the first and outermost whorl is that which has its circular rim the broadest, and the sixth whorl comes next to it in regard to breadth of rim; and, proceeding in order of breadth, the fourth whorl comes third, and the eighth fourth, and the seventh fifth, and the fifth sixth, and the third seventh, and the second eighth.' Thus we have now a new classification of the heavenly bodies, in the following sequence: 1. The Fixed Stars. 2. Venus. 3. Mars. 4. The Moon. 5. The Sun. 6. Mercury. 7. Jupiter. 8. Saturn.
 * Plato in: The Classical Review, Volume 24 Plato’s Theory of Planets, Editors of the Observatory, 1904, p. 137
 * The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.
 * Mark Russell in: George W. Stewart Frequent Flyer Humor and One-Upmanship, Dog Ear Publishing, Apr 1, 2011, p. 12

S - Z

 * The White Spot on Saturn's Ring, recently announced by Terby of Belgium, was observed at this Observatory [Warner Observatory, Rochester] on the evening of March 14th [1889] both by Professor Brooks and myself. In consequence, however, of its faintness, and of the bright moonlight in which it was viewed, it was a difficult object; but as we both saw in the same position and of the same size and shape, there could be no doubt in the mind of either of us that we had seen the “spot” which appeared as a narrow band extending across both outer rings, its western boundary being in contact with the black notch termed as shadow of the ball on the ring.
 * Lewis Swift in The Obsevatory in: “The Sidereal Messenger: A Monthly Review of Astronomy, Volume 8”, p. 189


 * It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy's edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create one world. Instead of one world, we have star wars, and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet's dead.
 * Gore Vidal in: “Armageddon” quoted in : Robert Andrews The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 861


 * Saturn Packing my bags -- going away To a place where the air is clean On Saturn There's no sense to sit and watch people die We don't fight our wars the way you do We put back all the things we use On Saturn There's no sense to keep on doing such crimes I'm.... Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow On Saturn People live to be two hundred and five Going back to Saturn where the people smile Don't need cars cause we've learned to fly On Saturn Just to live to us is our natural high.
 * Steve Wonder in: 56. Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life, MyGuitarSolo.com


 * I'll be better on Saturn; none of this matters.
 * SZA, "Saturn", Lana (2024)