Sorry but I don’t get the reference here.

Nitrogen doesn’t freeze until temperatures reach minus two hundred and ten degrees Celcisus or 63 degrees Kelvin or below – and Saturn ain’t that cold.

Temperatures on Saturn are usually minus one hundred and eighty five degrees Celscius & on Titan are minus one hundred and eighty Celscius or 94 Kelvin with 98 % of Titan’s atmosphere being nitrogen.

Oxygen, BTW., freezes at minus two hundred and eighteen Celscius or 54 Kelvin.

Water ice – the main component of Saturn’s rings – melts at zero degrees Celscius (273 Kelvin) with Lunar temperatures ranging from minus 233 to plus 123 Celscius. (Or 100 K to 390 K.)

Sources :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn & ice & Moon too plus

Watson, Fred [Editor], ‘Astronomica’, Millennium House, 2009.

Earth’s atmosphere is mainly nitrogen. (78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen & 1% argon in round figures with all other gases being trace elements only.)

So is Pluto’s. (99% nitrogen, some methane and Co2.)

Pluto’s atmosphere does eventually freeze during our winter when it is further out but then Saturn is much closer than Pluto is to the Sun! (10 AU for Saturn versus 30 to 50 AU for Pluto or 79 minutes light travel time from our Sun to Saturn vs 330 minutes light-time to Pluto.)

So Earth’s atmosphere (mostly) would NOT freeze solid if Earth were moved out to orbit Saturn where the ringed planet currently circles.

Sure people and oceans would freeze solid with all the water vapour freezing out as snow – although tidal interactions & geothermal heat could make some spots on Earth still pretty warm & keep Europa-style sub-ice surface seas alive – but Earth’s whole atmosphere? Nope.

Then there’s also the sad fact that if Saturn’s icy rings were at Earth’s distance from the Sun (1 AU – by definition or 8.3 minutes light time.) they’d melt away and disappear.

Still, its a great image!

Why not pronounce it one hundred and fifty second though? What ‘s wrong with that?

Also, I love this image that Ryan, who runs that blog, put together. This should be the Official CoS banner, I think.

Now *that* suggestion I’ll second!

BTW. How cool would it be if we were suddenly orbiting Saturn with Saturn being in Earth’s position so our atmosphere doesn’t freeze – & in a tilted polar orbit at that!