Quick Links
Home
Saturn Main
Location and Orbit
The Atmosphere and
Magnetosphere
The Surface
Interior and Physical Structure
Moons and Rings
Missions to Saturn
History Timeline
References & Links
Quiz
|
The Ringed World
A beautiful and mighty Thing of Light,
Radiant with glory, like a banner streaming
Victorious from some world-o'erthrowing fight.
-- Lord Byron
The Vision of Judgement |
 |
The Romans named Saturn after a god who seized divine kingship from his father Uranus and was himself later set aside by Jupiter. Though in mythology Saturn may have lost his preeminence, the planet’s place in the interests of astronomers is secure. Perhaps the most widely observed of all of the gaseous giants, Saturn’s retinue of moons (until recently it was thought to have the largest) and rings undergo constant examination. The rings of Saturn, poetically termed its “crown,” capture the popular imagination: occasionally described as the “showplace of the solar system,” during the right times of the year even the most unskilled of stargazers can make them out with a low-powered telescope or high-powered binoculars. Besides the rings, turning one’s lenses to the moon Titan (first seen by Huygens in 1655) may be rewarding. This satellite, larger than Pluto, has an atmosphere that ranks with Jupiter’s Io as the most likely environment to support life. NASA teamed up with the European Space Agency to launch the Cassini probe, which will drop an investigatory pod through Triton’s surface.
Quick Facts
Planetary Order from the SunSixth
Average Distance from the Sun1.425 x 109 km
SizeMass: 5.68 x 1026 kg
Diameter: 120,000 km
Density: 687 kg/m3
Rotation and OrbitRotation about Axis: 0.4440 Days (10.656 Hours)
Period of Revolution about Sun: 29.43 Years* (10,750 Days)
Orbital Inclination: 2.5o
Orbital Eccentricity: 0.06
* The approximation of 365.256 days per year is used.
Mean Temperature- 176oC (97 K)
Eighteen Satellites (Moons)Pan, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Calypso, Dione, Helene, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, Phoebe
|
Quick Links
Location and Orbit
The Atmosphere and
Magnetosphere
The Surface
Interior and Physical Structure
Moons and Rings
Missions to Saturn
History Timeline
References & Links
Quiz
|
|