40 Interesting and Fun Facts About Saturn

Saturn is the second largest planet in our Solar System after Jupiter

Saturn is 74,898 miles (120,537 km.) wide, nearly 10 times wider than Earth. Approximately 750 Earths could fit inside of Saturn.
Saturn is the 6th planet from Sun and is made mostly of gases. It has a lot of helium.
Saturn is a slightly smaller version of Jupiter, with similar, but less distinctive, surface patterns. Like Jupiter, it is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium gas. Saturn’s main difference to Jupiter is the amazing set of rings that orbit it.
Saturn’s rings are made up of bits of ice, dust and rock. Some of these bits are as small as grains of sand. Some are much larger than tall buildings. Some are up to a kilometer (more than half-a-mile) across.
Unlike other planets with rings, Saturn’s rings are the only ones that can be seen from Earth. using a small telescope.
It is named after the Roman god Saturnus and was known to the Greeks as Cronus.
Saturn orbits the Sun very slowly. A year on Saturn is 29.4 Earth years.
Nearly 1,600 Saturns could fit inside the Sun.
Storms on Saturn can last for months or even years. A long-lived 2004 storm on Saturn, named the “Dragon Storm,” created mega-lightning 1,000 times more powerful than lightning on Earth.
Saturn spins on its axis very fast. A day on Saturn is 10 hours and 14 minutes.
The day Saturday was named after Saturn.
Saturn is twice as far away from the Sun as Jupiter is.

The magnetic field of Saturn is nearly 578 times as powerful as that of the Earth.
Titan, another of Saturn’s moon is the only moon to have a substantial atmosphere. Its atmosphere is 370 miles deep.
Conditions on Titan may resemble ancient Earth conditions, though at a much lower temperature.
Titan is also the second largest moon in the solar system after Jupiters’ Ganymede. And it is larger than Mercury.
Scientists believe that the innermost core of the planet is made of rocky material and iron. Surrounding this core is an outer core made of methane, ammonia, and water. The third layer is the liquid metallic hydrogen in highly compressed form.
The Assyrians, who lived in modern-day Iraq, were the first to record sighting Saturn in 700 B.C. They called the planet the Star of Ninib, after the Assyrian sun god of spring.
In astrology, Saturn is the opposite of Jupiter. Whereas Jupiter is associated with expansion, Saturn is associated with contraction. Saturn is concerned with boundaries, practicality, reality, and building/conforming to social structures.
The core of Saturn is nearly 10 to 20 times bigger than that of Earth.
The superfast spin of the planet makes it bulge at the equator and flatten at the poles. The width of the planet at the equator is 7,337.151 miles or 11,808 kilometers greater than the width from one pole to another.
Discovered in 1789 by William Herschel, Saturn’s moon Enceladus (named after the mythological giant) has geysers that erupt icy particles, water vapor, and organic compounds. It is the shiniest object in the solar system because its icy surface reflects most of the light it receives.
Many of Saturn’s moons are named after the Titans, the giant brothers and sisters of the god Saturn. Others are named after Inuit, French, and Northern European giants.
Saturn radiates two to three times as much energy as it receives from the sun. The bulk of this energy comes from friction generated by helium rain. Helium condenses in the cooler upper layers of the atmosphere and gravity pulls it toward the core. It generates heat by rubbing against hydrogen molecules as it falls.
Saturn’s weather is determined by conditions deep in the planet rather than by the Sun. This is partly because Saturn is so far away from the Sun and generates heat internally.
Galileo Galilei was the first ever person to look at Saturn using a telescope in 1610. His telescope was not powerful enough but he did notice ring-like structures around the planet that eventually turned out to be real rings.
Saturn is considered the most beautiful planet in the solar system because of its stunning rings. It is the reason it is also called as “the jewel of the solar system.”
The atmospheric pressure on Saturn is over 100 times greater than the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. The pressure is so powerful that it squeezes gas into a liquid. It would crush any human-made spacecraft.

Christiaan Huygens discovered the first known moon of Saturn. The year was 1655 and the moon was Titan.
Giovanni Domenico Cassini made the next four discoveries of Saturn moons: Iapetus (1671), Rhea (1672), Dione (1684), and Tethys (1684).
Saturn has 53 confirmed moons and another 9 provisional moons (for a possible total of 62 moons).
Saturn’s environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, radiation levels and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.
While planet Saturn is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Satellites like Enceladus and Titan, home to internal oceans, could possibly support life.
The fifth-century B.C. text Surya Siddhanta approximated Saturn’s diameter at 73,580 miles. The calculation was only 1% off from the currently accepted estimate of 74,580 miles.
Scientists speculate that Saturn’s rings may disappear in 50 million years. Saturn’s gravitational pull will either suck the rings into the planet, or the rings will dissolve into space
Saturn’s moon Titan is a very noisy place. The sound of the wind on Titan is intensified because Titan’s thick air conducts sound waves so well.
Saturn’s nearest moon takes just 12 hours to circle the planet. Its farthest moon takes more than three Earth years.
Saturn is called a “naked eye” planet because it can be seen without a telescope or binoculars.
Because Saturn is so far from the Sun, the Sun would appear 10 times smaller viewed from Saturn than it does from Earth. On average, Earth receives 90 times more sunlight than Saturn.