Saturn

Saturn is the 6th planet from the Sun. From one side to the other it is almost 10 times the size of the
Earth and almost 100 times heavier. Saturn is also shaped as oblate spheroid which is flattened at
the poles and has bulging equators.
Now if the Earth were blown up by 10 times in every direction it would be 1000 times heavier, so you
can see that Saturn is made of much lighter stuff than the Earth!

Saturn is mostly gas, most of which is hydrogen and helium. At its center is a rocky core, about ten
times as heavy as Earth, surrounded by a thick ocean of liquid hydrogen and helium. Because of the
high-pressure around the core, the hydrogen behaves like a metal.
Above this ocean is a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium gas. What we see is the top of this
atmosphere

The most famous features of Saturn are the rings. They can easily be seen with a small telescope.
They lie in a disc around the planet and consist of millions of rocks and particles, perhaps ranging in
size from a hundred meters down to the size of a dust grain.

Saturn has 60 moons. There names are Pan, Daphnis, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus,
Janus, Mimas, Methone, Anthe, Pallene, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Calypso, Dione, Helene,
Polydeuces, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, Kiviuq, Ijiraq, Phoebe, Paaliaq, Skathi, Albiorix, S/2007
S2, Bebhionn, Erriapus, Skoll, Siarnaq, Tarqeq, S/2004 S, Greip, Hyrrokkin, Jarnsaxa, Tarvos,
Mundilfari, S/2006 S 1, S/2004 S17, Bergelmir, Narvi, Suttungr, Hati, S/2004 S12, Farbauti, Thrymr,
Aegir, S/2007 S3, Bestla, S/2004 S7, S/2006 S3, Fenrir, Surtur, Kari, Ymir, Loge, Fornjot. Of them,
Titan is the largest, and is the second-largest in our solar system. The other satellites have icy
surfaces and many craters. Mimas has one crater that spans one quarter of its diameter. Iapetus is
another which is an enigma. It's surface appears to be divided into two sections. Most of the moons,
which are small, were probably captured asteroids, and did not form with Saturn.

Saturn's revolutional/rotational period - As Saturn is a gas giant, the visible features on Saturn rotate
at different rates depending on latitude; the Equatorial Zone has a period of 10 h 14 min 00 s. All
other Saturnian latitudes have been assigned a rotation period of 10 h 39 min 24 s.

The precise value for the rotation period (the Saturn "day") of the interior remains elusive but the
best estimate is approximately 10 h 45 m 45 s while its orbital period (the Saturn "year") is 10 579
Earth days or 29.5 Earth years.
Saturn's average distance from the Sun is 890 million miles, as compared to Earth being "just" 93
million miles from the Sun. At its furthest point from the sun, known as aphelion, Saturn lies 934
million miles away; at perihelion, the shortest distance from the Sun, it is 837 million miles away.

Saturn’s Rings
The ring system of Saturn is divided into 5 major components: the G, F, A, B, and
C rings, listed from outside to inside (but in reality, these major divisions are
subdivided into thousands of individual ringlets). The F and G rings are thin and
difficult to see, while the A, B, and C rings are broad and easily visible. The large
gap between the A ring and and the B ring is called the Cassini division.

High resolution photographs from the Voyager missions indicate that the rings of
Saturn are composed of hundreds of thousands of "ringlets", and that regions like
the largest "gap" called the Cassini division, also contain fainter rings (adjacent
image). The rings cannot be solid, because they lie inside the Roche limit. They
presumably represent either a satellite torn apart by tidal forces, or (more likely)
material that was never allowed to condense into moons because of the tidal
forces. The evidence indicates that the rings are composed of particles that are
mostly ice crystals, with sizes as large as centimeters or meters. The total mass in
the rings is about the size of a medium mass moon, and the rings are only about
10 km thick.