When Galileo discovered Saturn in the early 1600's, Galileo thought that the object in the sky consisted of three parts. He thought that the rings around the planet were "ears". Scientists argued about the "ears" being apart of the planet or not for almost half a century. Then Christaan Huygens said that maybe they were not "ears". We now know his theory was correct.
Saturn is the 6th planet from the Sun and the 2nd biggest. When seen through a telescope Saturn is said to be one of the most beautiful things ever seen because people say it looks like a giant ball with many rings around it, but so beautiful you can't explain it.
Saturn is made of gas and spins very fast on its' axis. It spins so fast that the top and bottom of the plane go flat. Saturn's fast spins can get up to 100 miles per hour! Winds blowing that fast would blow you away! On the planet you may find white spots. The white spots are called white storms; these are storms that never end.
Saturn's hundreds of rings are made up of particles of dust and ice. Some of them can be gigantic while others can be really tiny. Some can be as big as 50 feet and some will only measure in inches. The particles range in size from small rocks to as big as a huge houses. Scientists believe that some moon chunks made some the particles.
Saturn is said to have 28 moons and still counting. Scientists are still trying to spot some moons they haven't spotted yet. Saturn's moons have a very strange orbit because some of them can go as far out to Uranus. Scientists say that it has taken a long time to find all the moons because they've only looked in a couple of spots. Scientists also say that some of the moons were pulled away from Uranus's orbit.
Saturn has many unique things about it and we are still learning more.
For more information visit the following sites:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/saturn/saturn.html
