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In July 2006, Cassini saw the first proof of hydrocarbon lakes near Titan's north pole, which was confirmed in January 2007. In March 2007, additional images near Titan's north pole discovered hydrocarbon "seas", the largest of which is almost the size of the Caspian Sea. In 2009, the probe discovered and confirmed four new satellites.
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
The first successful flyby of Mars was made by Mariner 4 in 1965. Mariner 10 first passed Mercury in 1974. The first probe to explore the outer planets was Pioneer 10, which flew by Jupiter in 1973. Pioneer 11 was the first to visit Saturn, in 1979.
Saturn is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture, who was the father of the god Jupiter.Its astronomical symbol has been traced back to the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri, where it can be seen to be a Greek kappa-rho ligature with a horizontal stroke, as an abbreviation for Κρονος (), the Greek name for the planet (). [35]
He discovered Saturn's biggest moon, Titan, and was the first to explain Saturn's strange appearance as due to "a thin, flat ring, nowhere touching, and inclined to the ecliptic." [10] In 1662 Huygens developed what is now called the Huygenian eyepiece, a telescope with two lenses to diminish the amount of dispersion. [11]
First Earth orbiter [1] [2] Sputnik 2: 3 November 1957 Earth orbiter, first animal in orbit, a dog named Laika [2] [3] [4] Explorer 1: 1 February 1958 Earth orbiter; discovered Van Allen radiation belts [5] Vanguard 1: 17 March 1958 Earth orbiter; oldest spacecraft still in Earth orbit [6] Luna 1: 2 January 1959
The new discovery increases the moons orbiting the "jewel of our solar system" to 82, surpassing Jupiter
The first step toward a theory of Solar System formation and evolution was the general acceptance of heliocentrism, which placed the Sun at the centre of the system and the Earth in orbit around it. This concept had been developed for millennia ( Aristarchus of Samos had suggested it as early as 250 BC), but was not widely accepted until the ...