Saturn is the most beautiful planet

Think of Saturn hanging in space, glowing like a streetlamp in fog, the tilt of its record-groove rings suggesting something imaginative, or even mad. Though it's a giant planet, second only to Jupiter in size, Saturn somehow manages to give off an ethereal vibe. And it's not only a vibewere there an ocean large enough to contain it, Saturn would float.

"Seen for the first time through a backyard telescope, writes Dava Sobel, in her book Planets, "ringed Saturn is the vision most likely to turn an unsuspecting viewer into an astronomer forever. Carolyn Porco, imaging lead on NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, confirms Sobel. "For me, it was my first cosmic connection, on par with a first kiss Porco told me. "No other planet looks as unworldly or surreal as Saturn. When you see it floating in the eyepiece of your telescope, you feel as if you've uncovered mystery in the cosmos. Talking to astronomers or reading histories of the discipline, you often encounter this ideathat Saturn is the solar system's seat of cosmic mystery.