*artist's
drawing |
distance
from the Sun:
about 1,429,000,000 km
diameter:
74,732 miles = 120,536 km
mass: about 568,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
temperature: -292 F at cloud tops
number of moons: 18 found so far
any rings? yes
length of a year: 29.42 of our years
length of a day: only 10 hrs, 13 min, 59
sec!!!
|
 |
Saturn is one of the Gas
Giants like Jupiter. Saturn is made
of hydrogen and helium - just not as much helium as Jupiter. It is
covered in an ocean of hydrogen. Below this, is liquid metallic
hydrogen, then a big rock center (bigger than Jupiter's). Saturn doesn't
have as much liquid metallic hydrogen as Jupiter does, so it doesn't
have as strong of a magnetic field. (Saturn is not as strong of a
magnet as Jupiter.)
|
Definitely not! Just like
Jupiter, there's no surface to stand on... You'd just have to swim
around in an ocean of liquid hydrogen. But the gravity on Saturn is so
strong that you'd sink anyway. There's no oxygen to breathe or water to
drink.
To escape Saturn's gravity and get out
into space, a rocket has to travel at a speed of 79,600 mph or 35.6
km/sec. That's about 1225 times faster than your parents are allowed to
drive on a U.S. highway!
Saturn has 18 known moons and scientists think there
may be 12 more! Maybe you'll be the one to find them for sure!
Here are the 18 (the year they were discovered is
after each one): Pan (1990), Atlas (1980), Prometheus (1980), Pandora
(1980), Epimetheus (1980), Janus (1966), Mimas (1789), Enceladus (1789),
Tethys (1684), Telesto (1980), Calypso (1980), Dione (1684), Helene
(1980), Rhea (1672), Titan (1655), Hyperion (1848), Iapetus (1671), and
Phoebe (1898). Whew!
Here's a good question for you... By looking at the
discovery dates for the moons, can you figure out which ones are the
smallest? (The answer is at the bottom of the page.)
The very coolest (not temperature!) of Saturn's
moons is Mimas. It looks just like the Death Star from Star Wars!!
The coolest thing about
Saturn is its set of rings! They're not solid rings like the ones you
wear on your fingers. They're kind of like Saturn's own little asteroid
belt. The rings are made up of millions and millions of chunks of rock
and ice. These chunks range in size from only 1 cm to 5 m (5 m is only
about 16 feet - not very big). The rings, themselves, are not very thick
- only about 20 meters.
Sources:
In Quest of the Universe, 2nd ed. by Karl F. Kuhn
Voyages Through the Universe, 2nd ed. by Fraknoi, Morrison and Wolff
Universe by Kaufmann
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy by Christopher De Pree and Alan
Axelrod
The Astronomy Cafe by Sten Odenwald
