CHAPTER VII

SATURN, A PRODIGY AMONG PLANETS


One of the first things that persons unaccustomed to astronomical
observations ask to see when they have an opportunity to look through a
telescope is the planet Saturn. Many telescopic views in the heavens
disappoint the beginner, but that of Saturn does not. Even though the
planet may not look as large as he expects to see it from what he has
been told of the magnifying power employed, the untrained observer is
sure to be greatly impressed by the wonderful rings, suspended around it
as if by a miracle. No previous inspection of pictures of these rings
can rob them of their effect upon the eye and the mind. They are
overwhelming in their inimitable singularity, and they leave every
spectator truly amazed. Sir John Herschel has remarked that they have
the appearance of an "elaborately artificial mechanism." They have even
been regarded as habitable bodies! What we are to think of that
proposition we shall see when we come to consider their composition and
probable origin. In the meantime let us recall the main facts of
Saturn's dimensions and situation in the solar system.

Saturn is the second of the major, or Jovian, group of planets, and is
situated at a mean distance from the sun of 886,000,000 miles. We need
not consider the eccentricity of its orbit, which, although relatively
not very great, produces a variation of 50,000,000 miles in its distance
from the sun, because, at its immense mean distance, this change would
not be of much importance with regard to the planet's habitability or
non-habitability. Under the most favorable conditions Saturn can never