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Saturn

1.17. Glossary

This page is still under development. While there are definitions here, there are very few of them.

Albedo - The ratio of the amount of light that and object emmits.

Aphelion - The point at which a planet is the farthest away from the Sun.

Astronomical Unit - A unit of distance defined to be the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. This is about 149,597,870 km.

Aurora - "Ribbon" of light caused by solar particles interacting with the magnetic field of a planet.

Bar - A unit of pressure. 1 bar is very close to the pressure at surface level on Earth.

Density - A ratio of the mass of an object by the volume that that mass occupies. In standard SI units, it is measured in g/cm3.

Eccentricity - The ratio between the foci and major axis of an ellipse. It can be used to describe the shape of the ellipse.

Ellipse - A geometrical shape that looks like an oval. The orbits of all planets follows the shape of an ellipse.

Gas Giant - One of the four planets composed mainly of hydrogen and helium: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Gravity - A force of attraction between any two objects with mass.

Ice - A term used to describe the presence and solid state of certain chemicals: water, ammonia, and methane.

Infrared - Electromagnetic radiation (light) with a wavelenght that is longer than what the human eye can see.

Jovian Planet - Any of the four gaseous planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Oblate - The flattening of a planet at the polar regions as a result of the spinning of the planet.

Perihelion - The point at which the distance between a planet and the Sun is a minimum.

Solar Wind - Solar wind is a stream of particles that travel away from the sun. It has a velocity of over 400 km/s. The sream is composed mainly of protons and electrons, but ions of almost every type are also emitted.

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