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Saturn
Information about the planet Saturn.
Actual |
Compared to Earth |
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| Distance from Sun (average) | 887 million miles | 9.5 |
| Distance from Sun (current) | loading... | loading... |
| Distance from Earth (current) | loading... loading... |
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| Revolution Period | 29.5 Earth years | -- |
| Rotation Period | 10 hours 39 minutes | -- |
| Diameter equatorial | 72,366 miles | 9 |
| Diameter polar | 67,560 miles | 8.4 |
| Mass | -- | 95 |
| Surface Gravity | -- | 0.91 |
| Temperature Cloud Tops | -125 °C (-190 °F) | |
| Density (gram/cubic cm) | 0.70 gm/cm3 | 0.32 0.13 |
What To Look For Through The Telescope
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Recommended eyepiece: 26mm or 40 mm.
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Saturn will appear as a yellowish ball with a ring around it.
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A dark cloud feature in Saturn’s atmosphere can often be seen.
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The dark line visible within the rings is called Cassini’s division. It separates two of the major rings as seen from Earth.
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Up to four of Saturn’s moons can usually be seen with the telescope. Sometimes a fifth moon can be seen. The brightest of the five is Titan.
Saturn Information
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Saturn is the farthest planet known to ancient stargazers. It was first seen through a telescope by Galileo Galilei in 1610. His telescope wasn’t nearly as nice as telescopes today, so he described seeing bulging “cup handles” (the rings).
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Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system.
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Saturn is a large ball of hydrogen and helium gas, the same stuff as in our sun. If Saturn had at least 300 times more of this material, Saturn might have become a star.
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It is difficult to see any cloud features on Saturn because the cloud layers are spread out in depth. This means the lower layers are obscured by the upper ones. You should be able to see one band in the telescope.
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Winds in Saturn’s upper atmosphere reach 1,100 miles per hour. (Hurricane force winds on Earth only reach about 240 miles per hour.)
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Saturn is so large for the amount of matter it contains that it would float in a bowl of water. Compare this to the moon which is a piece of rock.
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Saturn has a solid rocky core that is about two to three times the size of Earth.
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Like many of the other gas planets, Saturn is differentiating (probably due to helium rain-out in the interior). As a result it emits more energy than it receives from the sun.
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Saturn has at least 53 moons and another 29 possible moons have been found, bringing the potential total up to 82 moons - the most of any planet in the Solar System.
a. Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is larger than the planet Mercury. It is about 40% the size of Earth
b. Titan is one of only two moons in the solar system with an atmosphere. Neptune’s moon Triton is the other one.
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Saturn has a strong magnetic field that causes abundant auroras and radio emissions.
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References
| Item | Updated | Notes |
| Distance | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts |
| Revolution | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts |
| Rotation | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts |
| Diameter - Equatorial | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts |
| Diameter - Polar | -- | -- |
| Mass | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts |
| Surface Gravity | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts |
| Avg. Cloud Temperature | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts http://www.solarviews.com/eng/saturn.htm |
| Density | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts |
| Other Information | 2017-05-04 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/facts Wind Info and contraction Source: ”Cosmic Persepective“ 2nd ed. |
| Home > Solar System > Saturn > Rings | Top |
Saturn's Rings
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The rings are obvious through the telescope.
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Not as obvious but often visible is Cassini’s division, a dark line within the rings. This division is named after the Italian-born astronomer Jean Dominique Cassini who first saw the gap in 1675.
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Saturn has 7 rings, but from Earth only three different rings can be clearly seen. However, Voyager found that each ring is actually made up of hundreds of ringlets. The ringlets can be compared to the grooves on a phonograph album.
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The particles in the ringlets are pieces of ice that range in size from a grain of sand up to the size of a car or house. Each of these particles orbits Saturn like a tiny moon.
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Although the rings are 39,000 miles (63,500 km) wide they are about 100 yards thick. The diameter of the rings is over 125,000 miles. Imagine that you could shrink the rings so their thickness was the same as a DVD. The DVD would be about 1½ miles across.
| Home > Solar System > Saturn > Rings > References | Top |
References
| Item | Updated | Notes |
| -- | -- | -- |
| Home > Solar System > Saturn > Moons | Top |
Saturn's Moons
| Moon | Distance From Saturn (miles) | Compared to Earth / Moon distance | Revolution Period (around Saturn) | Diameter (miles) | Diameter Compared to Earth’s Moon |
| Enceladus | 147,900 | 0.62 | 1.4 days | 310 | 1/7 |
| Tethys | 183,000 | 0.76 | 45 hours | 658 | 1/3 |
| Dione | 234,000 | 0.98 | 2.7 days | 700 | 1/3 |
| Rhea | 327,000 | 1.4 | 4.5 days | 950 | 0.4 |
| Titan | 759,000 | 3.2 | 15.9 days | 3200 | 1.5 |
Saturn's Moons Information
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Saturn has at least 53 named moons with an additional 29 moons awaiting confirmation -- for a total of 82 moons. The most moons of any planet in the Solar System.
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Up to five of these moons can be seen with the telescope.
Titan
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Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system. Its 3,200 mile diameter makes it just larger than Mercury (3,029 miles), slightly smaller than Jupiter’s moon Ganymede (3,270 miles) and 40% the size of the Earth. If Titan orbited the Sun instead of Saturn, it would be called a planet.
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Titan is unique because it is one of only two moons with an atmosphere. The atmosphere is 95% nitrogen and 5% methane with methane playing the same role on Titan as water does on Earth. That means there may be clouds of methane, lakes of methane, and ice caps of methane on Titan. Triton (Neptune’s largest moon) is the other moon with an atmosphere.
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The Huygens probe, which descended to Titan in Jan 2005 found Titan had rivers and lakes of liquid methane-ethane.
Dione and Rhea
- Dione (diameter 670 miles) and Rhea (950 miles) are medium-sized moons that are half ice and half rock. They are heavily cratered.
Mimas
- Mimas is a small moon, only 250 miles across, that has a 60 mile crater on it. The impact which formed the crater almost split the moon in two. (Mimas can’t be seen through the telescope. It is only 90,000 miles away from Saturn.)
Iapetus
- Iapetus is a strange looking moon: part of it is very dark, the other part is very bright.
Enceladus
- Enceladus was the big surprise of the Cassini mission. This moon is only 310 miles across and is too small to be seen with our telescope. Its small size means it should be inactive and covered with craters. Instead it has a large number of tectonic folds and faults and an active ice volcano was detected at it’s southern pole. Scientists believe Enceladus is so active because of gravitational tidal forces imparted on it by Saturn.
| Home > Solar System > Saturn > Moons > References | Top |
References
| Item | Updated | Notes |
| Distance | 2002-09-29 | previously: Compared to Earth/Moon previously Titan: 5.1 previously Rhea: 2.2 previously Dione: 1.6 previously Tethys: 1.2 |
| Revolution Period | 2002-09-29 | OK |
| Diameter | 2002-09-29 | previously Dione: 672 |
| Diameter compared to Moon | 2002-09-29 | OK |
| Other Information | 2002-09-29 | added Iapetus stuff – can’t we see it sometimes, too? 2005-02-25 - Update Titan, add Huygens stuff, update number of moons 2005-03-16 - Update composition of Titan’s atmosphere 2005-12-16 - update number of moons 2006-02-10 - Add Enceladus info 2008-02-21 - Updated Enceladus info, took Iapetus out of the table and put Enceladus in the table |
| Number of Moons | 2019-10-10 | https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/overview/ |