Saturn - Basic Characteristics, Saturn's Atmosphere, Saturnian Storms, Saturn's Rings, Saturn's Icy Moons
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Saturn, sixth planet from the Sun, is the most remote of the planets that were known to premodern astronomers. Saturn is a gas giant with no solid surface; it is 9.45 times wider than Earth and 95 times more massive. It is circled by hundreds of rings consisting of small, ice-covered particles and is also host to at least 30 moons, including Titan, largest moon in the solar system and the only one with an extensive atmosphere.
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Saturn orbits the Sun at a mean distance of 9.539 astronomical units (AU, where 1 AU is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun). Its slightly eccentric (noncircular) orbit, however, allows the planet to be far from the Sun as 10.069 AU and as close as 9.008 AU. Saturn takes 29.46 Earth years to complete one orbit around the Sun. Saturn has an equatorial diameter of 74,855 mi (120,540 k…
The intensity of sunlight at Saturn's orbit is about one hundredth that at the Earth's orbit and about one fourth that the orbit of Jupiter. Consequently, and in spite of its internal heat sources, Saturn's surface is cold. When compared at levels with corresponding pressures, Saturn's atmosphere is some 270°F (150°C) cooler than Earth's and about 9…
The outermost regions of Saturn's hydrogen-helium atmosphere support ammonia, ammonium hydrosulfide, and water clouds. Saturn's storm features are not as pronounced or as long-lived as those observed on Jupiter, and Saturn has no weather feature as long-lived as Jupiter's Great Red Spot. However, isolated spots and cloud features are occasionally distinguishable from Earth. En…
When Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) first pointed his telescope towards Saturn in 1610, he saw two features protruding from the planet's disk. These puzzling side-lobes were in reality Saturn's ring feature, though Galileo's telescope was too small to resolve their shape and extent. When these side-lobes started vanishing, as the rings began gradually as…
Saturn has many satellites. The known Saturnian moons range in size from a few tens of kilometers up to several thousand kilometers in diameter. In all, 30 Saturnian moons have been discovered and 18 have received officially sanctioned names from the International Astronomical Union. Titan, Saturn's largest moon and the first to be discovered, was first observed by Huygens in 1655. The sate…
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