Gallery: 10 Awesome Things We Learned About Saturn in 2013
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft is still gathering data that is yielding new scientific discoveries nearly 10 years after it began its mission. The team of scientists in charge of the mission have chosen the 10 most interesting revelations they made in 2013, and it's an impressive list. We'll start with this beautiful mosaic map of the northern hemisphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, which is full of rivers, lakes, and seas. Titan’s lakes and seas are filled not with water but rather with hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane, which are typically gases on Earth but remain liquid at Titan’s average temperature of −180 degrees Celsius. Ever since Cassini started radar mapping the frozen moon in 2004, researchers have seen that Titan is a weird and wet world. But Cassini’s scans missed the true extent of some seas, including the biggest, Kraken Mare. This new map fills in almost all the area of Titan’s north pole and provides scientists with important answers to some of their questions. Using the radar data, scientists also discovered that the moon's second largest sea, Ligeia Mare, is around 560 feet deep. [Read more.](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/titan-lakes-seas/) *Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute*
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Jets of water ice and organic particles spray out of the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. This year scientists discovered that the amount of material in the jets is affected by the gravitational pull of Saturn. The water ice is very reflective, so when there is more of it being sprayed, the jets are brighter. The moon sprays the most when it is farthest away from the planet. Scientists suspect that the fissures, known as tiger stripes, that the jets come out of are squeezed together by Saturn's gravity, reducing the amount of spray. The image shows the moon's orbit and the relative brightness of the jets at the closest and farthest points. *[Read more](http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=4874).* *Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute*
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Cassini spotted evidence of meteoroids hitting Saturn's rings. In these images, clouds of material ejected from the impacts are visible. The [shape of the clouds reveals how old the impacts are](http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=4801). The two images in the upper left are the same impact 24 hours apart. The impact in the lower left image is just an hour old. The meteoroids were probably all similar in size to the meteor that struck Chelyabinsk, Russia in February. This is the first direct evidence of impacts on the rings, adding Saturn to the very short list of places that scientists can observe impacts in near real-time, which includes Earth, our moon and Jupiter. *Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute*
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For the first time, Cassini was able to get an up-close visible-light image of a massive hurricane on Saturn. The storm looks strikingly similar to hurricanes on Earth. But this one is much, much bigger. The eye is around 1,250 miles across, 50 times bigger than the average Earth hurricane, with winds reaching speeds of 330 miles per hour. *[Read more and watch a video of the storm](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/video-saturn-hurricane/)*. *Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute*
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Cassini captured its best view yet of the seas and lakes of liquid methane and ethane near Titan's north pole. The spacecraft was at a better angle than during previous flybys of the moon and took advantage of the sun rising in the north and burning off some of the haze that normally cloaks the area. *[Read more](http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleases/newsrelease20131023/).* *Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute*
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Cassini ran into an unusually strong gust of solar wind that contained particles traveling at nearly the speed of light. This kind of particle acceleration also occurs around supernovas, which are too far away to study. The shockwave (in blue above) created when the solar wind hits Saturn's magnetic field (grey) could offer scientists a way to study some aspects of supernovas. [Read more](http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassinifeatures/feature20130219/). *Image: ESA*
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Cassini spacecraft made the first off-world detection of a molecule called propylene, an ingredient of many plastics. Propylene is one of the simplest organic compounds, made from a chain of three carbons. On Earth, it is a byproduct of oil refining and other fossil fuel extraction processes. We use it as a raw material in creating many products. Cassini detected the propylene using its infrared spectrometer. *[Read more](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/cassini-titan-propylene/)*
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Scientists have known for a while that many of the patterns they can see in Saturn's rings are caused by the gravitational pull of its various moons. But the moons can't explain all the patterns, and scientists finally think they know what causes the others. Saturn naturally vibrates, with a period of a few hours, and the variation in the planet's gravity causes ripples in the rings. The rings are like a giant natural seismograph recording oscillations within Saturn and giving scientists a window into the planet's interior. *[Read more](http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/06/cosmic-quiver-saturns-vibrations-create-spirals-rings).* *Image: NASA*
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Cassini detected evidence of complex hydrocarbons in Titan's atmosphere that are precursors to the thick haze that blankets the moon. It turns out that Titan's haze forms in a similar way to smog on Earth. The image shows the various chemical reactions that eventually result in the orange-brown colored haze. *[Read more](http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassinifeatures/feature20130605/).* *Image: ESA/ATG medialab*
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This crazy, gigantic storm captivated scientists as it wrapped entirely around Saturn and eventually began eating its own tail in 2012. This year, scientists studying Cassini data from the storm discovered that the clouds contain ammonia and water ice -- the first detection of water ice on Saturn. *[Read more](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/saturn-storm-eats-tail/).* *Images: Above: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI. Below: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University* *Click the image below for a high-resolution version.* [](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2014/01/cassini10c-PIA16720.jpg)
