Talk:Saturn

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Units

Why are all distance units either km or AU, with no miles? - Denimadept (talk) 07:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I made a quick check in WP:UNIT and got the impression that this state of affairs is OK. --Ettrig (talk) 08:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Because it's a science article, my understanding is the same as Ettrig's. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Whither the vortex?

The "Cloud layers" section says:

Infrared imaging has shown that Saturn's south pole has a warm polar vortex, the only known example of such a phenomenon in the Solar System.

The "North pole hexagonal cloud pattern" section says:

Unlike the north pole, HST imaging of the south polar region indicates the presence of a jet stream, but no strong polar vortex nor any hexagonal standing wave.

These appear to be mutually exclusive claims. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"Ancient" Diameter of Saturn

I'm not sure the following should have a place in this article:

In the 5th century CE, the Indian astronomical text Surya Siddhanta estimated the diameter of Saturn as 73,882 miles, an error of less than 1% from the currently accepted value of 74,580 miles, for which there exist several possible explanations.

The citation is to a rather speculative article of dubious quality. The estimate hinges, for example, on assuming a particular conversion for a traditional unit. The hypothesis favored by the cited source is that "at some time in the past, ancient astronomers possessed realistic values for the diameters of the planets." The alternative explanations provided in the source are, in essence, that it is coincidence or fraud. The source then argues against each of these "alternative explanations."

Unless we think our article should present the largely unsupported concept of ancient advanced knowledge of planetary diameters, I propose this sentence be deleted. If there are no counterarguments within the next week, I shall make the deletion.

--SarahLawrence Scott (talk) 03:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The sourced paper certainly does rely on a lot of supposition and conjecture. Is there anything of value we can take from the text of Surya Siddhanta itself? Regards, RJH (talk) 05:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Ancient observations of Saturn

It would probably be a good idea to mention old Chinese, Indian and other observations of Saturn. At the moment there is too much focus on European observations.

Ancient observations of Saturn

It would probably be a good idea to mention old Chinese, Indian and other observations of Saturn. At the moment there is too much focus on European observations. Aberdeen01 (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Orbital characteristics

Hello everyone, first time on WP in order to comment something. Sorry for not being logged in. I just want to know why the orbital parameters from this article about saturn are not the same as http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/saturnfact.html Just explain how do you find these parameters, essentially eccentricity and semi-major axis (parameters of the ellipse)

i know it seems not a big difference, but it is significant.

Thanks -- 134.157.242.237 (talk) 15:11, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The NSSDC fact sheet uses an epoch of Julian Date 2451800.5 (13 September 2000) to define the changing orbital elements. Wikipedia uses an epoch of Julian date 2451545.0 TT (Terrestrial Time), or January 1, 2000, noon TT. -- Kheider (talk) 16:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a reference for this calculation (website, article)? Because it's hard to check, I didn't find by myself. I found some ephemerid for Righ Ascenscion and declination in (Archinal et al, 2011), but I didn't find for elliptical parameters.

Thanks -- 134.157.242.237 (talk) 16:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Goto Saturn Barycenter (Major Body=6) at http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=1&body_group=mb&sstr=6
• Select Ephemeris Type: "Orbital Elements"
• Select Time Span: Start=2000-01-01, Stop=2000-01-02, Step=12 h
• Generate Ephemeris

You will see 2451545.000000000 = A.D. 2000-Jan-01 12:00, EC= 5.57232E-02, A (Semi-major axis) = 9.582
--Kheider (talk) 18:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Kheider. If I read correctly the references it explains how to do. I used HORIZON but not very good apparently. Thanks for your time.

134.157.242.237 (talk) 08:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Units - again

Why are speeds given in km/hr rather than ms_{-1? Firstly, this is a scientific article and the Wikipedia standard recommends SI units, that is (again according to Wikipedia) MKS units. More importantly, I feel, units such as mph, km/h, knots etc. are only really relevant to terrestrial transport. In this example of wind speed on Saturn (which I would guess from the value that the author converted from 500m/s), I and, I suspect, most people reading the article, can readily visualise a distance of 500m and an object blowing past. A second later it's gone that far! Whereas, "Imagine driving along at 1,800km/h and sticking your hand out of the window." somehow doesn't give the same feel.}

Also, why not state very large distances in scientific notation? When coming to a subject like this for the first time I usually want one, or two at the most, digits of precision and an order of magnitude. Having to count digits and commas makes it more difficult to take in the information at a glance, although I admit that in this case AUs give me at least a far better feel for the scale.