Saturn
Saturn
Credit: NASA (Voyager 2)
Like Jupiter, it is a Gas Giant and so does not have a solid surface.
It is famous for its dramatic and beautiful rings.
The rings are not solid, but are made up of many millions of small lumps of ice and rock, varying from a few centimetres to several metres across. These are all orbiting around Saturn together.
Although they look very impressive, the rings are only about 1 km thick, compared to 250,000 km in diameter!
The first space-probe to go to Saturn was Pioneer 11 in 1979. Several others have been since.
As of July 2007, Saturn is known to have at least 60 moons (more than any other planet). The largest, Titan, is larger than both Mercury and the dwarf planet Pluto.
| Facts and Figures | |
| Orbit | 1,429,400,000 km from the Sun or 9.45 AU |
| Radius | 60,268 km |
| Mass | 5.69 x 1026 kg or 95.2 Earths |
| Length of Year | 29.45 Earth years |
| Length of Day | 10.23 Earth hours |
| Surface Gravity | 0.93 g |
| Surface Temperature | about -140 °C |
