Introduction
Saturn is the second-largest planet in the solar system, after Jupiter. It is the sixth planet from the sun and the farthest that can be seen with the naked eye. Saturn is a plant of giant gases like hydrogen, helium, and methane. In 1610, the Italian astronomer Galileo first observed Saturn with a telescope. The average radius of Saturn is about nine times that of Earth. The planet is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture. Its diameter is 74.87 miles, about 9.5 times larger than the diameter of the earth and the surface area is about 83 times larger (1) & (6). Therefore the present article is all about Saturn and its interesting facts and what are Saturn’s rings made of.
Interesting facts about Saturn
It is the fifth brightest planet in the solar system and it can be seen with the naked eye.
- Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the king of the gods in Roman mythology.
- Saturn is a flattened ball.
- A common nickname for Saturn is “Ringed Planet”.
- The distance of Saturn from the sun is around 0.9 billion miles.
- Saturn and Jupiter combined account for 92% of the entire planetary mass in the solar system.
- The magnetic field on Saturn is weaker than the Earth’s magnetic field.
- Saturn is known as a gas giant, but scientists believed it has a solid rocky core surrounded by hydrogen and helium (2).
Orbit and Rotation
Saturn takes one turn or rotates in 10.7 hours a day and makes a full orbit around the sun about 29.4 earth years (10,756 earth days). Its axis is tilted by 26.73 degrees with respect to its orbit around the sun, which is similar to Earth’s 23.5-degree tilt. Saturn therefore has seasons like Earth (3).
Temperature of Saturn
Due to its distance from the sun, it is a cold gas giant, with an average temperature of -178°C. However, due to Saturn’s inclination, the southern and northern hemispheres are heated separately, resulting in temperature differences (2)
Color of Saturn
The atmosphere of Saturn contains traces of ammonia, phosphine, aqueous vapors, and hydrocarbons which give it a yellow-brown complexion (3).
Formation of Saturn
About 4 billion years ago Saturn settled in its current location in the outer solar system. Saturn, like Jupiter, is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, the same two main components that make up the sun (1).
Structure of Saturn
Unlike its appearance, the Saturn is the lightest planet of the solar system. This is because of hydrogen and helium. Saturn has no real surface like Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. It has a solid core in the center similar to Jupiter, with water, ice, and rocky materials, but in reality, there is no ground floor. The inner core is very hot having a temperature of about -11,700°C and it spreads 2.5 times the amount of energy generated in space than the amount obtained from the sun. It is estimated that the core’s mass is about 9-22 times bigger than that of Earth. After the liquid level of helium-saturated molecular hydrogen, the dense liquid metallic hydrogen level is transferred to a gas with increasing height. The outermost layer is 1,000 km/ 621 miles wide and contains gas (1).
What Saturn is made of?
Saturn is made up of mainly hydrogen and helium. Therefore it is known as a giant gas planet. It has the same material as the sun. Scientists believe that Saturn is made up of 96% hydrogen, 3% helium, and 1% different trace elements including methane, ammonia, ethane, and hydrogen deuteride. Hydrogen and helium are what most stars make. It is thought that Saturn may have a molten, rocky core about the size of the Earth inside the planet (4).
Rings of Saturn
Earlier Saturn’s rings are thought to be comets, asteroids, or isolated moon pieces. these are broken down before reaching Saturn’s surface. And are keep revolving around the planet in the form of a ring. The size of the particles of the ring varies from a small house to a large mountain. These are covered with a very thick layer of ice, dust, and rocks.
The Saturn rings are spread up to 282,000 km and the different ring rotates at a different speed. The rings are named alphabetically and were discovered, the rings are relatively close to each other, apart from the 2,920 miles (4700 km) wide gap known as the Cassini section that separates rings A and B. There are seven main rings namely A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Starting from Saturn, the outer ring consists of the D ring, C ring, B ring, Cassini section, A ring, F ring, G ring, and lastly E ring. Fur away, Saturn’s moon has a very weak phoebe ring in the orbit of phoebe. In 1610, the Italian astronomer Galileo first observed Saturn with a telescope (2).
What are Saturn’s rings made of?
Saturn rings are made of a few million pieces of ice, dust, and rock. Some of these particles are as small as a grain of salt, and some are as large as houses. These rock and ice goats are said to be pieces of comets, asteroids, or even moons that were shattered by Saturn’s strong gravity before reaching the planet (2).
Interesting Facts of Saturn Ring
- Saturn’s rings were formed from 10 million to 100 million years ago.
- The planet Saturn is called “the jewel of the solar system” because its ring system looks like a crown.
- A recently published image of Saturn’s rings looks like a shimmering pink, gray hues and a hint of brown.
- Saturn’s rings are spin. The rate of spin of different parts of the same ring is different.
- Saturn is losing its rings. Saturn’s rings disappearing much faster than scientists had anticipated. New data from NASA’s former Cassini spacecraft has revealed that the rings will go 200 or 100 million years away than previously estimated (2).
