Saturn is best known for its fabulous rings system, it is also the farthest planet from the Sun, which can be observed in the night sky with the naked eye. Saturn, like Jupiter, is a gas giant and is and is composed of a mixture of hydrogen, helium, and methane.
1. Since Saturn is the fifth brightest object in the solar system, it has been known since ancient Babylonians. The planet is named after the Roman god of agriculture, Saturnus, who is equated to the Greek god Cronus.
2. Due to the low density and rapid rotation, Saturn is flattened at the poles. Its equatorial diameter is 6.5% greater than its polar diameter.
3. Saturn orbits around its axis every 10 hours 34 minutes, but around the Sun every 29.4 Earth years.
4. Winds in Saturn’s upper atmosphere can reach speeds of 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles) per hour near its equator. In contrast, the strongest hurricane-force winds on Earth top out at about 396 kilometers (246 miles) per hour.
5. In the upper layers, Saturn made up mainly of ammonia ice, under which are clouds of water ice. Closer to the nucleus, Saturn consists of an icy mixture of sulfur and hydrogen, and deep inside the nucleus itself is formed of metallic hydrogen.
6. Saturn has a powerful magnetic field that extends for about a million kilometers.
7. All gas giants in the Solar System have rings, but Saturn has the largest. The rings extend more than 120,000 km from the planet and the thickness fluctuates from ten meters to one kilometer.
8. The ring system is confined to the plane of Saturn’s equator made up of countless chunks of ice with a trace component of rocky material. The chunks range from marble-size to house-size.
9. Since Saturn’s axis is tilted as it orbits the Sun, Saturn has seasons, like those of planet Earth, but one season lasts more than seven Earth years.
10. Saturn has 62 confirmed moons of which 9 are waiting to be officially named. Titan is the largest of Saturn’s satellite and the only satellite in the Solar System with a nitrogen-enriched dense atmosphere.
11. Titan mainly consists of ice and rocky material. Its frozen surface has lakes of liquid methane and landscapes covered with frozen nitrogen. This is a real ice world.
12. Saturn was visited by four spacecraft: Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and 2 and the Cassini-Huygens. Cassini continues to explore Saturn and regularly sends a huge amount of data about the planet itself, its moons and rings.
