With its huge rings of ice and dust,
Saturn is one of the Solar System's
most iconic planets.
It's beautiful, really.
But what’s it hiding
behind those bright clouds?
Well, you’re about to find out
by taking a stroll
on the gas giant’s surface.
If you can.
About 1.2 billion km (746 million mi) away
from where you're standing right now sits Saturn,
the sixth planet from the Sun.
About nine times wider than Earth,
it's the second-largest planet
in the Solar System.
Circled by its signature rings of dust,
ice and rock,
Saturn also has 83 moons orbiting it.
63 of them known,
and 20 of these
awaiting official confirmation.
And with an atmosphere
mostly made up of hydrogen and helium,
this planet is considered a gas giant.
And this would be important to keep in mind
if you plan to take a leisurely stroll
along its surface.
Because you could just end up
falling right through it.
As you approached Saturn,
you'd be the first human
to take in the glory of its rings
and its swirling atmosphere in person.
Along the way,
you’d pass a few of Saturn’s moons.
Like its outermost moon, Iapetus,
the icy Enceladus
and its biggest moon, Titan.
You’d make a note to check that one out
on your way back home.
But for now,
you have a date with Saturn.
Soon, you'd be making your way through
its massive ring system.
This would mean you're getting close.
Saturn's rings don't even stretch as wide as the distance
between Earth and our own Moon.
You’d fly past each ring
in an order
that would scramble your understanding of the alphabet.
You’d go from the E ring
to the G ring
and then rings F and A.
After that,
there's a gap known as the Cassini Division.
Past it, you’d be onto rings B, C and D.
Yeah, it might sound like whoever named these rings
didn't know the alphabet too well,
but that's not true.
Saturn's rings were just named
in the order that they were discovered.
You'd pass a lot of stuff inside the rings.
Their components range in size from
the tiniest grains of ice-dust,
to objects like comets,
asteroids or pieces of former moons
that are as large as mountains back on Earth.
Finally, you'd make it to the D ring,
and you'd be hovering just above the planet itself.
Nothing left to do
except make your descent.
Traveling down to an altitude of about
1,400 km (870 mi),
you'd find yourself surrounded
by auras of red and purple.
They'd look so different from the ones we have on Earth
because of the highly energetic forms of hydrogen
in Saturn's atmosphere.
Your fall through
would suddenly get more exciting too.
You’d begin to get thrown around
by powerful gusts of wind.
In the upper atmosphere,
over the planet’s equator,
winds can reach speeds as high as 500 m/s (1,600 ft/s).
That’s almost five times stronger
than the strongest hurricane-force winds on Earth.
Yeah, so maybe the equator's not the best place to descend.
You'd try coming in for a landing elsewhere.
Like Saturn’s north pole.
Well, this wouldn’t be ideal either.
Because as you descend,
a hexagon-shaped storm
would be brewing below you.
And it would be huge.
Spanning about 30,000 km (20,000 mi) across,
you could fit about
2.5 Earths inside of it.
At least the winds here
would be more favorable.
But just by a little bit.
At the north pole, wind speeds
only reach 90 m/s (295 ft/s).
And I hope you dressed warm enough
for Saturn’s weather
because the gas giant's troposphere
has freezing cold clouds of yellow ammonia.
The temperature here
is about -250 °C (-418 °F).
Don't think that sounds too bad?
Well, good for you because
that’s 160 °C (288 °F ) colder
than the most frigid temperature
ever recorded on Earth.
Now you’d find things
starting to warm up a bit
as you continued to descend.
Next, you'd fall through a layer
of light-brown ammonium hydrosulfide clouds,
followed by normal clouds made of water.
Eventually, things would heat up
to the more comfortable temperature of 0 °C (32 °F).
But that wouldn't mean that
the conditions around you
would be comfortable.
Temperatures would climb higher and higher.
And at these lower levels of the atmosphere,
the atmospheric pressure
would be as intense as it is in the Mariana Trench,
the deepest part of our oceans.
At some point,
you’d be wondering
if you’ll ever reach Saturn’s surface.
Well, you’d be disappointed to learn
that you kind of already did.
It just wasn’t solid.
Technically,
the surface of this gas giant exists
where the atmospheric pressure is equal to that
of sea level back on Earth.
So it was way back up
in the freezing cold temperature.
There's not much
you could look forward to now
except continuing to fall
straight toward the center of the planet.
Of course,
the pressure and the temperature
would be climbing higher and higher.
Soon you'd find the pressure so high that
all that gaseous hydrogen and helium
you've been surrounded by
would turn into liquid.
Yeah, hope you brought a heavy-duty umbrella
that can handle helium rain.
But that’s my bad,
I should’ve warned you about this
before you stepped out of the spaceship.
OK, by now,
you'd be near the center of Saturn.
The planet’s molten rocky core
could be about
10 times more massive than Earth’s.
And conditions would be beyond intense.
Here, it could be as hot as 11,700 °C (21,092 °F)
with pressure over
1,000 times what you experience on Earth.
Yeah, maybe going for a quick stroll on Saturn
wasn't such a smart idea.
You'd be thrown into an environment so hostile
that it would freeze you,
then burn you,
then crush you under the planet's immense pressure.
You wouldn't have a good time.
And you didn't even get a chance to walk on Saturn.
Because, as you found out,
this gas giant doesn't have a hard surface.
What a bummer.
You know, the only way you could survive this trip
is if you had a special
What If-certified spacesuit.
You know,
the kind that still needs to be invented.
Now, if you did somehow
manage to escape from Saturn,
you could make a quick stopover
somewhere a little more manageable.
Like Saturn’s moon, Titan.
Approaching this moon,
you'd find that
it's larger than our own Moon
and even bigger than Mercury.
Titan's not just some boring rock, either.
Soon you'd be enveloped by its hazy gold
and orange atmosphere
of nitrogen and methane.
The thick haze around you
would look a lot
like smog back on Earth.
But the worst part is,
once you get close to the moon's surface,
the atmospheric pressure
would make you feel
as if you were diving
15 m (50 ft) deep in the ocean.
And at -180 °C (-290 °F),
it would be bone-chillingly cold.
But the good news is after all that
falling back on Saturn,
you’d finally be able to stretch those legs out
and work on your step count.
Yeah, you'd go for a walk along Titan's rock-hard water ice.
Strolling along Titan's surface,
you'd encounter all kinds of interesting features.
The surface itself would be dark
and covered in
what would first seem like coffee grounds.
These hydrocarbon grains
would generate massive dunes,
almost like the sand dunes back on Earth.
And there’d be other things
that would blow your mind too.
You’d discover rivers and lakes.
Only instead of water
they'd be full of liquid methane and ethane.
There'd also be volcanoes
spewing liquid water instead of lava.
Is it just me or is everything on this moon
just slightly off?
Now, who knows?
This may not sound all that bad to you.
Maybe you'd even entertain the idea of
settling down on Titan for good?
Well, that’s a story for another WHAT IF.