Basic Facts about Saturn: Gas Planet’s Rings, Moons and Exploration

Ever since its discovery by Galileo Galilei, about 400 years, Saturn, which is known as the second largest planet in the Solar System and the sixth planet, if you could from the Sun, has been fascinating the scientists and astronomers from all over the world.

While scientists try to discover more important features of the planet, we tried to gather the most interesting facts and astronomical discoveries, connected with it.


View video presentation on YouTube: Saturn: 7 Fun Facts about the Second-Largest Planet in the Solar System

#1. Who first discovered Saturn and its rings?

When Galileo first saw this astronomical object through a telescope, his knowledge nor his technical tools didn’t allow him to distinguish that this was a gas giant and a planet with the most prominent ring system. On contrary, Galileo Galilei treated this planet as three separate celestial objects.

It took the astronomical science about 50 more years to realize that the planet is surrounded by continuous rings, which was hard to believe at that time. The person responsible for the discovery Saturn’s moons and making the ring system theory was a Dutch astronomer, Christiaan Huygens.

#2. What is Saturn made of?

The famous rings of the planet consist of frozen particles of rocks and dust, which greatly range in size from just microns to several meters. Like other giant planets, Saturn is mainly made up from gas.

#3. The second-largest planet in the Solar System

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, while Saturn comes second. Just for comparison – the diameter of Jupiter's diameter is about 142,984 km (88,846 mi), while Saturn’s diameter is only 116,464 km (72,367 mi). The size of Jupiter corresponds to 1.18 times the size of Saturn but its weight is 3.34 times bigger.

Briefly speaking, Saturn is very big, but light. So if, theoretically, the planet Saturn was immersed in water, it would remain afloat. The gravity of the planet is only 91% of the Earth’s.

#4. A naked-eye planet

Alongside #Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury, Saturn belongs to the list of 5 naked-eye planets, the ones which could be seen from Earth without any additional equipment. On a clear night out, if you look into the sky, you will have no problem spotting Saturn, as it usually the celestial object in the sky.

#5. When and why are Saturn's rings disappearing?

There is one interesting features of Saturn's orbit that makes the planets rings disappear (not fully vanish but to become invisible for the Earth due to an optical illusion).

Like the Earth, Saturn's axis is tilted relative to the Sun. At half way around its orbit, Saturn's South Pole faces the Sun, and then the North Pole. During the Saturnian year, which as it was already stated is equal to about 29.7 Earth years, there are periods, when Saturn is seen from its side from the Earth, so it seems that thin rings fully disappear (but only from our view).

The main reason for this is that the rings are extremely thin, compared to the overall size of the planet and it’s nearly impossible to see their edges from such a long distance. The next time the phenomenon on vanishing rings is expected to happen in 2024-2025.

When Galileo first observed this phenomenon, he thought that he was losing his mind. But not many people were lucky enough to witness such a transition, as it took place only 13 times since Galileo first observed Saturn with a telescope in 1610.

#6. The moons of Saturn

Some of the most important discoveries, after the rings of Saturn, were the moons of this gas giant. What makes these moons so important is that the biggest one of them, Titan, proved to be the Solar System’s only natural satellite to have thick atmosphere. The presence of such atmosphere made scientists question the possibility of existing life forms on Titan.

#7. Incredibly fast winds

At the equator of the planet the winds reach colossal speeds – up to 1,800 km/h (1,118 mph). For comparison, the world's fastest wind speeds take place during hurricanes but they do not exceed 400 km/h (248 mph) and the maximum recorded wind speed on our planet was caused by a tornado – over 500 km/h (312 mph).

#8. Spacecraft missions and Saturn's hexagon

In the 1980s the first space missions reached Saturn.  The space probes called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 managed to bring incredibly important photos of the planet, as the probes managed to capture a very unusual formation or a phenomenon, which was taking place on North Pole of this planet.

What amazed the researchers was that the cloud pattern around the pole had a hexagonal shape. At that time such geometrically correct form was labeled as accidental, moreover, the pictures were not of the highest quality.

But an unmanned spacecraft mission called Cassini–Huygens, which managed to make better photos of the planet, showed that the hexagonal cloud pattern is still present on Saturn, even after so many years. What is especially unusual about this phenomenon is that the clouds form a regular shape, a hexagon to be exact. Each side of the Saturn's hexagon is approximately 13,800 km (8,600 mi) long and it constantly rotates counterclockwise.

The phenomenon is produced by a giant whirlwind, but scientists are still to figure out why it creates such an unusual effect in the Saturn's atmosphere.

#9. Light effects of aurorae on Saturn

Cassini–Huygens mission also managed to take pictures of one-of-a-kind light effects, which appear nearby the hexagon from time to time. It is assumed that the light effects are caused by the aurorae, which have no analogues in the Solar System, as their intensity depends on the activity of the Sun.

Quick facts to remember about the gas giant:

- Scientists were able to calculate the rotation time on the place, based on observations of radio emissions. Saturn’s full rotation is not distinct and takes between 10 hours and 39 minutes and 10 hours, 46 minutes to complete.

- The first spacecraft Pioneer 11 to reach this planet had to travel 6 years and six months to get there.

- Jupiter is the planet with the biggest number of moons – 63. Saturn is second with its 62 moons.

- At the moment, there is only one spacecraft orbiting the planet. Cassini has been the only major supplier of scientific data and discoveries since 2004.

- The difference between Saturn and Earth is 9.4 times in diameter and 95 times in weight (Saturn being incredibly larger is unbelievably light). The volume of the gas giant is 763 times bigger that the volume of our planet.

- Like many other planets in the Solar System, orbit of this planet is not a perfect circle and has an elliptical trajectory. The time during while Saturn completes a revolution around the Sun is equal to 29.7 years or 10,759 Earth days.

- Saturn is a planet with the biggest level of oblateness in the Solar system. Its radius at the equator is 60,300 km, while the radius at the poles is just 54,000 km, which is a 10% difference.

Image credits:

1) www.lightsinthedark.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/saturn_hr.jpg
2) www.lightsinthedark.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/saturn-nov27.jpg
3) www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia06193_0.jpg