Some people don't understand the horrifying reason we can't land astronauts on Saturn

A bizarre conspiracy theory has got people questioning why humans will never land on Saturn.

While man may have landed on the moon and Elon Musk is planning to set up a colony on Mars, landing on Saturn will sadly always be beyond the realms of possibility.

However, that hasn’t stopped some people from questioning why that is - in a recent post on X, one bloke shared a computer generated image of an astronaut looking out towards Saturn with the caption: “You cannot go to these ‘planets’ because exploration was a lie. Jesus it gets so worse.”

Thankfully, most people were quick to correct the X user and - quite rightly - pointed out that it’s not really a sign of a shady conspiracy but actually just basic science.

Saturn is a ‘gas giant’, which, as the name suggests, means its largely made up of gas and although it may have a solid core beneath the layers of hydrogen and helium that core could actually be liquid.

Not only that, but the immense pressure and temperatures on Saturn would stop you from getting anywhere near its core anyway.

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For context, on Earth the pressure is about one bar, while over on Saturn it hits a whopping one million bar.

But even if they somehow survived that insanely high level of pressure the temperatures, which can reach thousands of kelvins, would see them off.

A community note on the original X post points out: “Gas Giants such as Jupiter and Saturn, while possessing solid cores (theoretically), are not safe to traverse internally.

"Wind speeds are in the thousands of mph, temperatures beyond any material limits, and pressure so intense that hydrogen turns into a liquid conductor."

And NASA explains: “The planet is mostly swirling gases and liquids deeper down. While a spacecraft would have nowhere to land on Saturn, it wouldn’t be able to fly through unscathed either.

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"The extreme pressures and temperatures deep inside the planet would crush, melt, and vaporise any spacecraft trying to fly into the planet.”

So basically, don’t be expecting to take a trip to Saturn anytime soon.

Of course, this also means that Saturn most likely isn’t home to any alien life forms as the temperatures, pressure and overall conditions aren’t conducive to life as know it.

However, NASA does note that Saturns moons could support life.

The space agency explained: “Satellites like Enceladus and Titan, home to internal oceans, could possibly support life.”

Topics: Space, NASA

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]