Facts About Planet Saturn - The Planet With Rings
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Saturn |
Saturn is the second-largest planet in the solar system, after Jupiter and named after Roman God of time and agriculture. Saturn's gaseous nature means that it has no truly solid surface. Instead, it is mainly made up of hydrogen (94%), helium (6%) and a small amount of ammonia and methane. Like Jupiter, it has probably a rocky core surrounded by ice and metallic hydrogen. The most prominent feature of Saturn is its most significant and brightest ring. Saturn's ring system is divided into seven groups of rings and made of icy and rocky materials. So far, only four spacecraft had visited Saturn.
Facts about Saturn
A Video On Saturn Facts
Planet Profile
Name | Saturn |
---|---|
Known Satellite | 82 (as of 2019) |
Distance from Sun (avg) | 1.434 billion km |
Equatorial Radius | 69,911 km |
Polar Radius | 54,232 km |
Volume | 8.27 × 1014 km3 |
Mass | 5.683 × 1026 kg |
Surface area | 42.7 billion km2 |
Gravity | 10.44 m/s2 |
Surface Temperature ( at 1 bar) |
-139℃ or -218 °F |
Length of day | 0 day 10 hrs 42 min (earth time) |
Length of year | 29 Earth years |
Astronomical symbol | ♄ |
Quick Facts About Saturn
- Wind speed on Saturn can reach up to 1,800 kilometres or 1,118 miles per hour.
- The magnetic field of Saturn is slightly weaker than Earth's. That is about one-twentieth strength of Jupiter's magnetic field.
- Distance between Saturn and Jupiter is the same about the gap between Jupiter and the Sun.
- Saturn and Jupiter together account for 92% of all the planetary mass in the solar system.
- Saturn is the flattest planet in the solar system due to its fast spinning.
- Difference between the equatorial radius and poler radius is only about 10%. Equatorial radius is 60,268 km or 37,449 mile and its polar radius is 54,364 km 33,780 miles.
- Saturn's ring is wide enough to fit six earth in a row.
- But its rings are only about 10 to 30 meter thick.
- One day on Saturn is only about 10 hours and 33 minutes, but it takes 29 earth years to complete its orbit.
- Because of its vast orbit, through your life, you could see Saturn 3 times in the same position.
- Earth is the densest planet, but Saturn is the least dense planet in the solar system because it is mainly composed of hydrogen and helium.
- Saturn is actually less dense than water. If you put Saturn in a big bathtub full of water, it would float.
Detailed Facts about Saturn
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Saturn is named after Roman god of time
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Saturn - God of ancient Romans © Wikimedia |
He was the patron deity of the city, had a temple in the forum and guarded the Roman Treasury. Romans were so keen on him that they celebrated a December holiday called Saturnalia, which shared similarities with modern-day Christmas.
People knew Saturn long ago
Astronomers noted Saturn as far back as the early first millennium BC. Ancient Chinese, Greek and Indian scholars actually incorporated the planet into their Pantheon's. In fact, the 2nd century Greco-roman astronomer Ptolemy even came up with a calculation to Saturn's orbit. He used Earth and the Sun as base points.
The disappearing "arms" of Saturn confused Galileo
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Galileo's sketch of Saturn |
Later in 1659, a Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens solved the mystery of disappearing "arms", with the help of his improved telescope. He finally deduced that the "arms" were actually a ring system. Following Huygens, in 1675 Giovanni Cassini confirmed it when he identified a gap in the ring. In honour of both Huygens and Cassini, NASA named its Saturn space mission, that provided the most detailed image yet of our solar systems second largest world.
Saturn is 95 times more massive than Earth
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Saturn and Earth-size Comparison |
Because of its gassy state, you can't actually stand on Saturn there's simply nothing on the surface to support you. 96% of the planet is made up of hydrogen, a pretty unstable element to begin with. There is a solid core in theory at least, but no one is certain how big it is.
Saturn is 9.5 times farther from the Sun than Earth
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Orbits of Saturn and other outer planets with their positions |
The average distance from Sun is 1.4 billion km or 886 million miles, but it varies throughout its year. At its closest proximity (perihelion), Saturn is around 839 million miles or 1.4 billion kilometres from the Sun; at its farthest point (aphelion), it is about 934 million miles or 1.5 million km away. Making it nearly nine and a half to ten times farther away from the Sun than Earth.
Saturn has an unorthodox North Pole
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North pole of Saturn |
The hexagonal north pole first noted during Voyager mission in 1981. The hexagon changed its colour from blue to a golden colour between 2012 and 2016. The swirls are due to the low friction atmosphere. How the hexagon is formed, it is still a mystery.
Saturn is surrounded by hundreds of moons and moonlets
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Major moons of Saturn © Flicker |
They are pretty diverse in name and size. The largest and perhaps most famous of them is Titan. The moon is bigger than the planet Mercury but not much smaller than Mars. On the other side of the spectrum, Mimas is the smallest, which can fit inside the state of Texas. Most of the moons are small icy bodies that are part of its stunning ring system. They are the shapes of spherical, cylindrical and saucer.
Saturn's moon Enceladus is the brightest moon in the solar system
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Enceladus - one of the smallest moon of Saturn |
But there is one area that is not quite that cold though the South Pole. In 2005, Cassini spotted active geysers of water spewing from the south pole. That warm section emits fountains of ice that last hundreds of miles into space. The water is erupting from a series of cracks nicknamed as “tiger stripes”. It is coming from deep under the surface. Cassini even flew directly through the plumes and detected organic molecules. For this reason, astronomers speculating about the possibility of life.
Saturn's moon Titan has rivers and lakes, but they carry Methane
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Kraken Mare - largest known liquid body on the surface of titan, bigger than the entire country of Japan |
Cassini also spotted lakes of liquid methane near its north and south poles. There is no other world, apart from Earth which has that type of liquid activity on its surface. It also deployed a probe named "Huygens" to land on Titan’s surface - the first time humanity had ever touched down on an outer solar system world. NASA will send nuclear-powered dragonfly in 2026 which search for life on Titan.
The ring of Saturn may be made of broken pieces of icy moons
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NASA's Cassini orbiter captured a panoramic mosaic of Saturn with its full set of rings and our Earth as a dot in the background |
One of the theory states during the formation of the solar system, a large moon made up primarily of ice was pulled into Saturn's gassy orbit. Before it took the fatal plunge, the moon was stripped of its icy mantle. The remains were swept into the path around Saturn. It's believed that many other moons may have faced a similar fate. They shed, even more, ice into Saturn's ring system. But there's still a lot more we have to learn about ring formation.
Rings of Saturn divided alphabetically according to their discovery
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Saturn with a full set of rings |
The A and B ring are the brightest and densest rings of the planet. They are divided by Cassini Division, discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini. The gap is about 5000 kilometres or 3,000 miles wide, and it is due to Saturn’s moons Mimas. The C and D are inner and fainter rings, covered with dark materials. F ring is at the edge of A ring. The G and E rings are the outermost and farthest rings of Saturn.
Saturn's impressive rings are disappearing
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Charged particles of rings raining on Saturn |
When you think of Saturn, you think rings. But according to NASA, the rings will not last more than 300 million years. Yes! Saturn is losing its ring much faster than previously thought. Every second 10,000 kilograms of ring material falling out of the Saturn's rings. Fast enough to fill an Olympic-sized pool in half an hour.
Saturn’s rings consist mostly of water ice and dust. They are under constant bombardment with Ultraviolet light from the Sun and plasma clouds coming from tiny meteoroids. When this collision happens, icy particles vaporise and form charged water molecules. Which then became attached to Saturn’s magnetic field and pulled into the planet by gravity. These charged particles rain down onto Saturn's upper atmosphere where it begins to disintegrate. The Rings are only a hundred to two hundred million years old. We are pretty lucky that we are able to see those magnificent rings.
How about these Saturn Facts?
Those are the interesting facts about Saturn. How about you? Want to know more information and facts about Saturn? Check out these links:- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Saturn
- https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ planets/saturn/overview/
- https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ planets/saturn/in-depth/
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