Saturn

Saturn’s moon Enceladus is famous for its plumes that spray water into space. Now the James Webb Space Telescope has watched the biggest known plume so far, spanning thousands of miles, and studied how they feed a huge water “donut” around Saturn.

Saturn has overtaken Jupiter as the planet with the most known moons in the solar system. Astronomers have announced a bumper crop of 62 new moons orbiting the ringed planet, pushing its total to well over 100.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has engineered a self-propelled, autonomous robot snake designed to explore extreme extraterrestrial terrain. Its first-of-a-kind propulsion system means it can boldly go where no robot snake has gone before.

Saturn is renowned for its rings, easily visible through an ordinary telescope. Now, using observations collected over 40 years, scientists have discovered a never-before-seen interaction between the planet and its iconic rings.

Saturn is home to several solar system mysteries. Using data from Cassini, astronomers now suggest a simple answer to a few questions – a lost moon once orbited the planet before being torn to shreds.

Every year, the Hubble Space Telescope conducts a grand tour of the outer solar system planets, checking their turbulent atmospheres for changes in weather, storms, clouds and colors. This year’s shots are now in, revealing a few surprises.

Scientists have recreated in the lab some of the wild weather that might be found on Jupiter and Saturn. Using extremely high pressures and laser shock waves, the researchers produced helium rain which has been hypothesized to fall on these planets.

Scientists have predicted the presence and movement of ocean currents in the vast subsurface ocean of Enceladus. The moon, which is sheathed in a 20 km thick shell of ice, is one of the most promising prospects in the search for ET.

Researchers at the Paris Observatory's Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation have found that the unusual tilt of Saturn's axis is due to the periodic gravitational pull of its moons over the last billion years.

Data captured by the Cassini spacecraft has been used to create a new infrared map of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The images highlight the icy world's dramatic "Tiger Stripe" vent formation, which leads to a subsurface ocean that could play host to life.

ESA engineers have determined why the space agency's Huygens probe suddenly began spinning the wrong way 15 years ago as it descended to the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The reversal could have implications for future space missions.

Enceladus’ unique "tiger stripe" fissures have long been something of a mystery. Why do these distinctive formations only exist at Enceladus’ south pole? Why they are so evenly spaced, and why they haven’t simply closed up or frozen over?