You Jumped into Saturn's Rings!

What IF You Jump into Saturn's rings! 

Since its discovery in 1610 by Galileo, the rings of Saturn have enchanted us for centuries. Remarkably, we have visited Saturn before. Stunning photographs taken from the Cassini space probe have revealed that Saturn's rings are much more complex than you might think!

Can we go on Saturn?

So what it would be like to actualy go in person?

How long would it take you to travel to Saturn?

What would you see along the way?

Could you survive in Saturn's rings?

Here's what would happen if you jumped in Saturn's rings!

On October 15th, 1997, NASA the European space agency, and the Italian space agency banded together to change the history of astronomy. Their mission was to study the Saturn's system, a diverse mix of stellar objects made up of rocks, ice and and several moons. Together they developed a space probe "Cassini-Huygens" which was propelled on seven year journey to Saturn. Let's imagine we had the technology to bring you, traveler, along for a ride.

What kind of adventure are you in for?

Well, luckily, we're taking the scenic route. After a year of drifting through space and sayiing goodbye to Earth, our first stop is Venus. Don't worry, this isn't a layover, we're merely visiting the outer edge of Venus' orbit, giving you a gravitational speed boost as you pass by. This allow you to save on fuel and take in view of Venus' swirling scenery. 

After the first boost, you'll get a nice boost of 7 km/s. But we'll need one more journey around it for the optimal speed boost. This time, we'll be about 600 km from Venus. I hope you have a strong stomach,  traveler, as the gravitational pull might be like that time you ate funnel cake before goimg on that spinny ride at that fair. Ugh, never again. After a quick spin around Venus, you'll be slingshotted towards Mars and Jupiter, but this part of the ride might get a little bumpy, so buckle up. You're about  to pass through an asteroid belt.

Fortunately,the chances of hitting an asteroid are pretty slim as they are very spread apart, unlike what you see in the movies.Still you never know. Just be prepared to take a manual control in case your proximity sensors malfunction. 

Once you have made it to the scary part, it's fairly smooth sailing from here on out. Sit back an admire the view. On your right, in the distance, you'll see the red planet, Mars. And on your left is Jupiter. Look, that shiny speck orbiting the gas giant is "The Gilileo Spacecraft" a small yet welcome reminder of home. At this point, it's been almost five years. Wow, how time flies when you're hurled through space. 

Saturn is our next stop. But is it safe? We're about to find out. After waiting a couple of years, we've finally arrived in orbit of Saturn. Suprisingly, the flat and solid ring structure you've seen in pictures back home were way off. These rings are complex system of orbits, subdivided by several different sections. Each of these are seperated by gaps made from over 60 of Saturn's moons. The rings are made up of chunks of ice and rock, some as small as litte boulders and some as big as houses. These are the remnants of comets, asteroids, meteoriods and shattered moons torn apart by Saturn's gravity. 

Alright traveler its time for spacewalk.

You probably won't have much success walking on Saturn's rings unless you happen to land on one of it's moons, like Methone, Pallene or even Titan which has been considered a potential site for a future space colony. But you'll want to keep your space suit on, as Titan is as chilly as -179 degrees Celsius. At this point you're almost twice the distance between the Earh and the Sun.

Now for the moment of truth. The GRAND FINALE. As we approach the final rings of Saturn, we'll have to fly through them on a carefull trajectory, orbiting Saturn 22 times to get our best travel shots. Here you'd be only 2,000 km away from Saturn's atmosphere. After about 20 years in space, you'd reach Saturn's interior. Let's be honest, you'd likely disintegrate. But, thankfully, you were careful and managed to hang around on Titan instead, leaving the Cassini probe to do the rest of the work.

The amount of data Cassini managed to send back to Earth is trully spellbinding, making it one of humankind's greatest succes in astrnomy. 

Thank you