Saturn
Mythology
Saturn is the last of the ancient planets, and it is thought to be named after the god of agriculture and time because of its slow and constant orbit around the sun.
 Facts
Saturn is known for its famous rings, even though three other planets also have rings: Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. Saturn’s rings actually have a division between the two main sets of rings. This division is called Cassini’s division. Saturn also has the second fastest rotation with a day lasting about 10 hours. This means that the storms in Saturn can be very fierce, just like Jupiter’s. Because Saturn is farther out than Jupiter (1,427 million km or 9.54 AU), it is colder and the gases look much paler when they mix, as they don’t have the heat in their reactions that Jupiter has. Saturn is also the second largest planet with a diameter of 120,536 km (9.41 Earth diameters).
Viewing Saturn
Saturn is another easy planet to view, and is usually around magnitude 0. Because a year on Saturn is nearly 30 Earth years, Saturn stays in the same constellation for 2 years at a time, making it extremely easy to spot with a sky chart. Saturn has at least 18 known satellites, most of these discovered by Voyager one and two. The largest of Saturn’s moons is known as Titan, and it is one of the few moons to have an atmosphere. In fact, if you include the atmosphere, Titan is actually the largest moon in the solar system and not Ganymede.
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