Saturn

Did You Know?
Saturn is sometimes called the ”Jewel of the Solar System” because its ring system looks like a crown.
Those rings are made up of dust, rock, and ice accumulated from passing comets, meteorite impacts on Saturn’s moons, and the planet’s gravity pulling material from the moons. Some of the material in the ring system are as small as grains of sand, others are larger than tall buildings, while a few are up to a kilometer across.
Saturn has 53 known moons, some of them have great names like Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, and the largest, Titan.
Titan has its own atmosphere which is very unusual for a moon.

Planet Profile
Mass (kg) 5.69 x 1026
Diameter (km) 120660
Mean density (kg/m3) 690
Escape velocity (m/s) 35600
Average distance from Sun 9.537 AU (1,426,725,400 km)
Rotation period (length of day in Earth days) 0.44 (10.2 Earth hours)
Revolution period (length of year in Earth days) 29.46
Obliquity (tilt of axis degrees) 26.7
Orbit inclination (degrees) 2.49
Mean temperature (K) 88 K (1 bar level)
Atmospheric components
  • 97% hydrogen,
  • 3% helium
  • .05% methane
Rings
  • Rings are 270,000 km in diameter