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Saturn

sixth planet in the Solar System, with a ring system mainly composed of ice particles

21 dated entries naming Saturn, drawn from 19 separate years between 7 BCE and 2020 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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1st century BC

  • 7 BCEAppearance of a very bright triple conjunction of the royal star Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Pisces (land in the west) in May until December of that year since 854years, with a retrogradation and stationing on November 12. Robert A. Powell (1996) proposes that this is the birth date of Jesus.source

8th century

  • 720A second series of gravitational interactions with Saturn, the second since 1664 BC, once again force the Centaur (minor planet) Chiron into a new orbit, shifting it from orbiting in the edges of the Solar System to orbiting near the inner regions.source

13th century

  • 1226March 4 – Just before dawn, a great conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter is observed from Earth. The conjunction is more significant than other occurrences because the separation of the two planets as visible in the sky of Earth (2.1 arcminutes or 1/30th of one degree of arc) will not be closer again until March 8, 4523 CE, and the close conjunction is the most easily visible from Earth until the conjunction of December 21, 2020.source

17th century

  • 1623July 16 – A great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, with the planets only 5 arc minutes apart, the closest between 1226 and 2874. This conjunction likely goes unobserved, as it occurs near the Sun and the telescope has been invented only recently.source
  • 1655March 25 – Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.source
  • 1671October 25 – Italian-born French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Iapetus, the second known moon of the planet Saturn. Christiaan Huygens had discovered the Saturnian moon Titan on March 25, 1655.source
  • 1672December 23 – French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Rhea, a previously-unknown satellite of the planet Saturn. Rhea is the second-largest overall, and the third moon of Saturn to be discovered by Earth astronomers, Titan having been found by Christiaan Huygens on March 25, 1655 and Iapetus by Cassini on October 25, 1671.source

18th century

  • 1789August 28 – William Herschel discovers Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.source

19th century

  • 1808December 9 – At 20:34 UTC, Mercury occults Saturn (there are no observation records).source
  • 1848September 16 – William Cranch Bond and William Lassell discover Hyperion, Saturn's moon.source
  • 1899December 2 – During the new moon, a near-grand conjunction of the classical planets and several binocular Solar System bodies occur. The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are all within 15° of each other, with Venus 5° ahead of this conjunction and Jupiter 15° behind.source
  • 1899March 18 – Phoebe, the ninth-known moon of the planet Saturn is discovered by U.S. astronomer William Pickering from analysis of photographic plates made by a Peruvian observatory, the first discovery of a satellite photographically.source

20th century

  • 1979September 1 – The U.S. Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21000 km mi.source
  • 1980March 1 – The Voyager 1 probe confirms the existence of Janus, a moon of Saturn.source
  • 1980November 10–12 – Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn, when it flies within 77,000 mi km of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high-resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth.source
  • 2000May 5 – A rare conjunction of seven celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, planets Mercury–Saturn) occurs during the new moon.source

21st century

  • 2004July 1 – The Cassini–Huygens orbiter reaches the orbit of Saturn.source
  • 2005January 14 – The Huygens spacecraft lands on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.source
  • 2006March 9 – NASA's Cassini–Huygens spacecraft announces a geyser-like emission of vapor, dust, and small ice crystals on Saturn's moon Enceladus, possibly indicating the presence of water.source
  • 2017September 15 – Cassini–Huygens ends its 13-year mission by plunging into Saturn, becoming the first spacecraft to enter the planet's atmosphere.source
  • 2020December 21 – A great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurs, with the two planets separated in the sky by 0.1 degrees. This is the closest conjunction between the two planets since 1623.source

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