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Saturn Flaps its Wings!The movie shows a cartoon of ten years of Saturn's appearance from the Earth. Saturn shakes, rattles, and rolls, perhaps more so than you might have imagined!
The movie runs at a rate of 1 calendar
year per second.
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See if you can figure out what all the dancing, squirming, and throbbing is about. Hints:
- Saturn is 9 times further from the Sun than the Earth. So as both planets move in their orbits, there are times when the Earth and Saturn are nearer and further (closest approach is about once per year, right?).
- Just as the Earth's rotation axis is tiled by 23 degrees from the plane of its orbit around the Sun, the rotation axis of Saturn and its rings is tilted by 26 degrees. Their rotation axes are steady in direction; that is, each of their rotation axes remains aimed in the same direction relative to the fixed stars. (That's not quite true, but it doesn't matter for our purposes!)
- The plane of the Earth's orbit and the plane of Saturn's orbit are almost, but not quite, the same plane. (They differ in tilt by 2.5 degrees)
- Saturn's orbit is slightly elliptical, so there are times when it is 10% closer to the Sun than at other times. (This effect is small but noticeable in the movie.)