Saturn

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Roman Mythology The god of agriculture.
2. n. The sixth planet from the sun and the second largest in the solar system, having a sidereal period of revolution about the sun of 29.5 years at a mean distance of about 1,426,000,000 kilometers (886,000,000 miles), a mean diameter of approximately 120,000 kilometers (74,000 miles), and a mass 95 times that of Earth.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An ancient Italic deity, popularly believed to have appeared in Italy in the reign of Janus, and to have instructed the people in agriculture, gardening, etc., thus elevating them from barbarism to social order and civilization. His reign was sung by the poets as “the golden age.” He became early identified with the Kronos of the Greeks. Ops, the personification of wealth and plenty, was his wife, and both were the especial protectors of agriculture and of all vegetation. His festivals, the Saturnalia, corresponded to the Greek Kronia.
2. n. The most remote of the anciently known planets, appearing at brightest like a first-magnitude star. It revolves in an orbit inclined 2½° to the ecliptic, departing toward the north by that amount near Spica, and toward the south in the ribbon of the Fishes. Its mean distance from the sun is 9.5 times that of the earth, or 883,000,000 miles. Its side-real revolution occupies 29 Julian years and 167 days, its synodical 378 days. The eccentricity of the orbit is considerable, the greatest equation of the center being 6°.4. Owing to the fact that the period of Saturn is very nearly 2½ times that of Jupiter, these planets exercise a curious mutual influence, analogous to that of one pendulum upon another swinging from the same support. Since 1790, when in consequence of this influence Saturn had lagged 50′ behind and Jupiter had advanced 20′ beyond the positions they would have had if undisturbed, Saturn has been moving continually faster, and the whole period of the inequality is 929 years. This is the largest perturbation of those affecting the motions of the principal bodies of our system. Saturn is the greatest planet except Jupiter, its diameter being about 9 times, its volume 697 times, and its mass 93.0 times that of the earth. Its mean density is 0.7, water being unity. Gravity at the surface has the intensity of terrestrial gravity. It is evident that we see only the atmosphere of Saturn. Its albedo is 0.5, about that of a cloud; but its color is decidedly orange. It shows some bands and spots upon its surface which are not constant. The compression of the spheroid of Saturn exceeds that of every other planet, amounting to of its diameter. Its rotation, according to Professor Asaph Hall, is performed in 10h. 14.4m. Its equator is nearly parallel to that of the earth. After the discovery by Galileo of the four satellites of Jupiter, Kepler conjectured that Mars should have two, and Saturn six or eight moons. In fact, Saturn has eight moons, as follows (the distances from the planet being given in thousands of miles):
3. n. In alchemy and old chemistry, lead.
4. n. In heraldry, a tincture, the color black, when blazoning is done by means of the heavenly bodies. See blazon, n., 2.
5. n. The thickness of the ring is considerably less than a hundred miles. Its plane is inclined 7° to the planet's equator and 28° 10’ to the earth's orbit. When Saturn appears in the hind legs of Leo or the water of Aquarius, we see the rings edgewise, and they pass out of sight, remaining invisible as long as the sun shines upon the side away from us, for the ring only shows by the reflected light of the sun. They are best seen when the planet is in Taurus and Scorpio. As soon as Saturn was examined with a telescope (by Galileo), it was seen to present an extraordinary appearance; but this was first recognized and proved to be a ring by Huygens in 1659. In 1674 J. D. Cassini saw the separation between rings A and B, which is hence called the Cassinian division. (It has also been erroneously called Ball's division.) The dusky ring was discovered in 1850 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, by G. P. Bond. The ring was first assumed to be solid. Laplace showed that, upon that assumption, it must be upheld by the attractions of the satellites. B. Peirce in 1851 demonstrated the ring to be fluid—that is, to consist of vast numbers of particles, or small bodies, free to move relatively to one another. This had been suggested by Roberval in the seventeenth century. See cut on preceding page.

Wiktionary

1. n. Roman mythology The god of fertility and agriculture, equivalent to the Greek Kronos.
2. n. astronomy, astrology The second largest planet in Earth's solar system, famous for its large rings and until recent times the furthest known; represented in astronomy and astrology by ♄.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Roman Myth.) One of the elder and principal deities, the son of Cœlus and Terra (Heaven and Earth), and the father of Jupiter. The corresponding Greek divinity was Kro`nos, later CHro`nos, Time.
2. n. (Astron.) One of the planets of the solar system, next in magnitude to Jupiter, but more remote from the sun. Its diameter is seventy thousand miles, its mean distance from the sun nearly eight hundred and eighty millions of miles, and its year, or periodical revolution round the sun, nearly twenty-nine years and a half. It is surrounded by a remarkable system of rings, and has eight satellites.
3. n. (Alchem.), Archaic The metal lead.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (Roman mythology) god of agriculture and vegetation; counterpart of Greek Cronus
2. n. a giant planet that is surrounded by three planar concentric rings of ice particles; the 6th planet from the sun