It takes a year and a half to cross the space between Jupiter and Saturn if we travel at a speed of 50 000 kilometers per hour, just like Voyager. But it's worth the effort. Now Saturn appears ahead of us like an enormous veiled globe with golden reflections. By now we are one and a half billion kilometers away from the Sun and, if we look behind, our star seems to be a small disk of light a thousand times brighter than the full Moon. Because of this enormous distance Saturn receives only one hundredth the heat and light that reaches the Earth but, like Jupiter, it emits much more. With its thin rings, which extend for 272 000 kilometers into space, this stupendous sixth planet has always been considered as the jewel of the solar system. And it is also unique: first, until almost the end of the Eighteenth century, because it represented the extreme limit, the last rampart of the known solar system, and secondly, because it was the only planet with rings. It lost the first of these two unique features two centuries ago. Now, it has also lost the second one, since Jupiter and Uranus were found to have their own ring system. Current research has always represented Saturn as Jupiter's younger brother. Both planets have rings and are truly enormous (a diameter of 120 000 kilometers for Saturn and 142 000 for Jupiter). They both consist mainly of hydrogen and helium in the liquid state, probably have a core made of rock and ice and are surrounded by a large number of moons. But if Jupiter and Uranus took away Saturn's unique feature of the rings, now Saturn has shown that one of the typical features of Jupiter, the Great Red Spot, is not so amazing, considering that Saturn also has those types of spots, though perhaps slightly paler and not quite as stable. However, on the surface of Saturn, the wind is three to four times stronger than on Jupiter: at the equator it roars at 1 800 kilometers per hour compared to 500 on Jupiter. However, Saturn does have its own record: this giant, whose diameter could contain no less than nine Earths, has a mass that is 95 times that of our planet, but a density only 70% that of water, probably the lowest in the entire solar system. Saturn's fast rotation, which completes a full revolution in 10 hours and 40 minutes, makes it very convex at the equator: the diameter of the planet at that latitude is more than 10 000 kilometers greater than the distance measured between the poles. Therefore, Saturn is flatter than Jupiter, which also rotates rapidly, but being denser, is less "flexible" than its younger brother.
It takes a year and a half to cross the space between Jupiter and Saturn if we travel at a speed of 50 000 kilometers per hour, just like Voyager. But it's worth the effort. Now Saturn appears ahead of us like an enormous veiled globe with golden reflections. By now we are one and a half billion kilometers away from the Sun and, if we look behind, our star seems to be a small disk of light a thousand times brighter than the full Moon. Because of this enormous distance Saturn receives only one hundredth the heat and light that reaches the Earth but, like Jupiter, it emits much more. With its thin rings, which extend for 272 000 kilometers into space, this stupendous sixth planet has always been considered as the jewel of the solar system. And it is also unique: first, until almost the end of the Eighteenth century, because it represented the extreme limit, the last rampart of the known solar system, and secondly, because it was the only planet with rings. It lost the first of these two unique features two centuries ago. Now, it has also lost the second one, since Jupiter and Uranus were found to have their own ring system. Current research has always represented Saturn as Jupiter's younger brother. Both planets have rings and are truly enormous (a diameter of 120 000 kilometers for Saturn and 142 000 for Jupiter). They both consist mainly of hydrogen and helium in the liquid state, probably have a core made of rock and ice and are surrounded by a large number of moons. But if Jupiter and Uranus took away Saturn's unique feature of the rings, now Saturn has shown that one of the typical features of Jupiter, the Great Red Spot, is not so amazing, considering that Saturn also has those types of spots, though perhaps slightly paler and not quite as stable. However, on the surface of Saturn, the wind is three to four times stronger than on Jupiter: at the equator it roars at 1 800 kilometers per hour compared to 500 on Jupiter. However, Saturn does have its own record: this giant, whose diameter could contain no less than nine Earths, has a mass that is 95 times that of our planet, but a density only 70% that of water, probably the lowest in the entire solar system. Saturn's fast rotation, which completes a full revolution in 10 hours and 40 minutes, makes it very convex at the equator: the diameter of the planet at that latitude is more than 10 000 kilometers greater than the distance measured between the poles. Therefore, Saturn is flatter than Jupiter, which also rotates rapidly, but being denser, is less "flexible" than its younger brother.
