Saturn Facts

Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and lies between Uranus and Jupiter. The rings of Saturn are its best-known feature, but there are many other Saturn facts to consider.

Saturn Facts

As the second biggest planet in the solar system, Saturn is a gas giant. This makes it similar to Jupiter in that it has no solid rock surface as found on terrestrial planets such as Earth and Mars. That being said, Saturn is famous for its rings.

Saturn has a ring system lying in flat and seeming to project out from the equator of the planet. Galileo was the first to discover the rings in 1610, but he thought they were two masses because his telescope wasn’t strong enough to show the distinctions. 45 years later, in 1655, Christiaan Huygens was able to identify the masses around Saturn as a single ring using a more advanced telescope. A mere 20 years later, in 1675, Gian Domenico Cassini was able to determine the ring around Saturn was actually multiple rings with gaps in them. For this accomplishment, the largest gap in the rings is now known as the Cassini Gap or Division. As you can see, telescope technology improved significantly from 1610 to 1675!

As is often the case with issues involving space, things didn’t change much in our understanding of the rings around Saturn. We assumed there were three or four depending on who was arguing what position. Then the Voyager probe visited Saturn. Pictures sent back from Voyager revealed there are actually thousands of tiny rings making up seven distinct sections of rings circling Saturn at the equator. Put another way, the accepted facts regarding Saturn’s rings were wrong.

We now know the ring system is nearly 170,000 miles from the inner most point to the outermost edge. Despite this huge width, the rings are shockingly thin, only 330 feet thick on average. How the rings came to be is a complete mystery. While there are no hard facts on the issue, it is hypothesized that the rings consist of debris from impacts and shattered comets, meteors and asteroids. Until a closer inspection can be made, there is no way to no the true facts.

As majestic as the rings of Saturn are, astronomers have shown a unique lack of creativity in naming them. They are named “A” through “F”.

Saturn Facts

Saturn, however, isn’t just about rings. Here are some Saturn facts that don’t involve the rings, but are just as important:

On average, Saturn is 886 million miles from the Sun.
Saturn has a rocky core, but primarily consists of liquid metallic hydrogen.
Because Saturn is a gas giant, parts of the planet rotate at different speeds.
One rotation at the equator, a “day”, takes 10 hours and 14 minutes. At the poles, it takes 25 minutes longer.
Winds on Saturn are often well above 1,100 miles per hour.
Because it doesn’t have a rocky surface like Earth, centrifugal forces cause Saturn to bulge in the middle and flatten at the poles.
Saturn’s density is less than water on average, although this fact is a bit misleading. As one looks deeper into the planets gas surface, density rises well above water.
Saturn is extremely hot and sends off more energy than it receives from the Sun.
Saturn has a massive magnetic field.
Saturn is visible in the night sky with the naked eye.
“Spokes” have been found running perpendicular to some of the rings of Saturn, but scientists have been unable to determine the cause of them.

As of 1997, Saturn was believed to have 18 moons. The Cassini probe, however, revealed at least 47 moons and raised a strong suspicion there were even more. Reviews of data from previous probes using new imaging technology has revealed another 12 moons and, well, the number if fluctuating all over the place. Most of the new moons haven’t even been named. The facts surrounding the moons of Saturn are in such a state of flux, nothing definitive can be said about them.

Despite its size and visibility to the naked eye in the night sky, Saturn is still a mystery to mankind. When discussing Saturn facts, one simply has to realize many of the facts may be different as we continue to visit the planet and improve our technology.

<< Back to Saturn - The Planet