What If You Fell Into Saturn?

If you fell into Saturn, you would never land. You'd fall past rings of ice only about ten meters thick, through winds of 1,800 km/h, past a storm shaped like a hexagon, and down into a sky where it might rain diamonds. Follow the only spacecraft that ever dived into Saturn, NASA's Cassini, through its last 22 orbits and its final plunge in 2017, then keep going: into an ocean of metal, helium rain, and the fuzzy core that Saturn's own rings revealed. Where should we go next: Earth's core, inside the Sun, or into a black hole? Tell me in the comments. Chapters 0:00 What if you fell into Saturn? 0:55 The lightest planet 1:36 Cassini and the gap 2:17 Saturn's sky 2:59 The hexagon 3:33 Storms and lightning 3:54 Cassini's last plunge 4:48 Metal, helium rain and diamonds 5:42 The core and the rings 6:34 Ocean worlds, and what's next Sources Size, density, temperature: NASA NSSDCA — nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/saturnfact.html Rings and winds: NASA — science.nasa.gov/saturn/facts Cassini's Grand Finale (22 dives, a ~2,000 km gap): NASA — science.nasa.gov/mission/cassini/grand-finale/overview The final plunge (~113,000 km/h, 83-minute signal delay): NASA — science.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/cassini-spacecraft-makes-its-final-approach-to-saturn 91 seconds in Saturn's atmosphere: NASA JPL — jpl.nasa.gov/news/reconstructing-cassinis-plunge-into-saturn Hexagon sides ~14,500 km: Sánchez-Lavega et al. 2014 — doi:10.1002/2013GL059078 The polar hurricane (eye 20× an Earth hurricane's): NASA JPL — jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-probe-gets-close-up-views-of-large-hurricane-on-saturn The 2010–11 storm and its lightning: Fischer et al. 2011 — doi:10.1038/nature10205 Metallic hydrogen and helium rain: Nettelmann et al. 2024 — doi:10.1007/s11214-024-01090-1 Excess heat (~1.8–2.4×): Wang et al. 2024 — doi:10.1038/s41467-024-48969-9 Diamond rain, a hypothesis (Delitsky & Baines 2013): Nature News — doi:10.1038/nature.2013.13925 The fuzzy core, from ring seismology: Mankovich & Fuller 2021 — doi:10.1038/s41550-021-01448-3 ; Hedman & Nicholson 2013 — doi:10.1088/0004-6256/146/1/12 Ring rain and the rings' lifetime: O'Donoghue et al. 2019 — doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2018.10.027 ; Waite et al. 2018 — doi:10.1126/science.aat2382 Earth from Saturn, 2013: NASA — science.nasa.gov/photojournal/the-day-the-earth-smiled-sneak-preview Enceladus: NASA — science.nasa.gov/saturn/moons/enceladus Huygens, the farthest landing ever: ESA — sci.esa.int/web/cassini-huygens/-/36280-titan-surface-landing Dragonfly: NASA — science.nasa.gov/mission/dragonfly Images & footage Cassini images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute (PIA06193, PIA14905, PIA14944, PIA14945, PIA17171, PIA21345, PIA21611 with Hampton University, PIA11684, PIA11688, PIA14602, PIA21889) Mission control footage, final-plunge illustration (PIA21440): NASA/JPL-Caltech Cassini launch photo, Earth from Apollo 17: NASA Huygens on Titan: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (PIA07232) Dragonfly illustration: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL Cassini 3D model: NASA 3D Resources Saturn map: Solar System Scope, CC BY 4.0 — solarsystemscope.com/textures Animation, music and sound design: original · Narration: AI voice #saturn #space #science