Why Can’t You Walk On Saturn?

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 surface if you can what would it be like to fall through Saturn's atmosphere how soon would extreme conditions bring you to a Frozen end and if somehow you did make it to the surface what would you find this is what if and here's what would happen if you tried to walk on Saturn's surface about

1.2 billion kilometers away from where you're standing right now since Saturn the sixth planet from the Sun about nine times wider than Earth it's the second largest planet in the solar system Ed 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 iapidus 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 on to 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 1400 kilometers 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 meters per second that's almost five times stronger than the strongest hurricane force winds on Earth yeah so maybe the equator is not the best place to descend you tried 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 kilometers across you could fit about two and a half Earths inside of it yeah at least the winds here would be more favorable but just by a little bit at the North Pole wind speeds only reach about 90 meters per second 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 minus 250 degrees Celsius don't think that sounds too bad well good for you because that's 160 degrees 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 zero degrees Celsius but that would 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 the gacious 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 have warned you about this before you stepped out of the spaceship okay 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 degrees Celsius with pressure over one thousand times what you experience on Earth yeah maybe going for a quick stroll on

Saturn wasn't such a smart idea went 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 bummer you know the only way you could survive this trip is if you had a special what if certified space suit you know the the kind that still needs to be invented now if you did somehow manage to escape from

Saturn you could make a quick stop over 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 meters deep in the

ocean and at minus 180 degrees Celsius it would be bone chillingly cold but the good news is 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 would 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 would 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