| Average Distance From Sun: | 1430 Million KM |
| Diameter: | 120,000 KM |
| Mass: | 95 x Earth Standard |
| Gravity: | 1.16 x Earth Standard |
| Density: | 0.7 that of Water |
| Atmosphere: | Hydrogen, Ammonia, Methane gases |
| Moons: | 20+ |
| Saturn Year: | 29.5 Earth YearsS |
| Saturn Day: | 10hrs 14mins |
The second largest planet in the solar system, sixth from the Sun.
Encircled by bright and easily visible equatorial rings. Viewed through a telescope it is white, but appears lemon-coloured when seen at closer range (by the two Voyager probes, for example).
Saturn is believed to have a small core of rock and iron, encased in ice and topped by a deep layer of liquid hydrogen. There are over 20 known moons, its largest being Titan.
The visible rings begin about 11,000 km from the planet's surface and extend out to about 56,000 km. Made of small chunks of ice and rock (averaging 1 m, they are 275,000 km rim to rim, but only 100 m thick.
The Voyager probes showed that the rings actually consist of thousands of closely spaced ringlets, looking like the grooves in a record.
Like Jupiter, Saturn's visible surface consists of swirling clouds, probably made of frozen ammonia at a temperature of -170 degrees C, although the markings in the clouds are not as prominent as Jupiter's.
From Earth, Saturn's rings appear to be divided into three main sections.
Ring A, the outermost, is separated from ring B, the brightest, by the
Cassini division (named after its discoverer Cassini), 3,000 km wide; the inner, transparent ring C is also called the Crepe Ring. Each ringlet of the rings is made of a swarm of particles of ice and rock, a few centimetres to a few metres in diameter. Outside the A ring is the narrow and faint F ring, which the Voyagers showed to be twisted or braided. The
rings of Saturn could be the remains of a shattered moon, or they may always have existed in their present form.
Saturn is without doubt the most easily recognised of the planets due to its network of rings that circle the planet. A curious theory about Saturn says that because of the planets very low density (below that of water), Saturn would probably float in a large enough ocean.