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Saturn
Table of Contents
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Pictures of Saturn and Saturn’s Rings
How was Saturn Created
Saturn’s Features
Saturn’s Year and Day
Saturn’s Rings
Long Ago
Today
Pictures of Saturn
and Saturn’s Rings
How was Saturn Created
• Scientists believe that Saturn is made
of cold gas and dust. Just as all of the
other planets were during the solar
nebula.
• Saturn’s rings are made of ice, dust,
and rocks! Some of the particles can
be as small as a single piece of salt,
while others can be as big as an RV!
Saturn’s Features
• Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun.
• Saturn has sixty moons, but only fifty-two
officially have names.
• Saturn’s rings are by far the most spectacular
out of Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.
Saturn Year and Day
• Saturn’s year = 29.46 Earth years
• Saturn’s Day = 0.43 Earth day
Saturn’s Rings
Ring Name: D
Distance*: 66,970 - 74,490 km
Width: 7,500 km
Ring Name: C
Distance*: 74,490 - 91,980 km
Width: 17,500 km
Ring Name: Columbo Gap
Distance*: 77,800 km
Width: 100 km
Ring Name: Maxwell Gap
Distance*: 87,500 km
Width: 270 km
Ring Name: Bond Gap
Distance*: 88,690 - 88,720 km
Width: 30 km
Long Ago
• In Roman myths Saturn is the god of agriculture!
• Galileo was the first to see Saturn with a telescope in
1610. Galileo was confused with the shape of the planet.
• Until 1659 no one understood the rings around Saturn.
Christiaan Huygens inferred the shape of Saturn.
Today
• Voyagers one and two flew
by and photographed Saturn
in 1981.
• Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
will orbit Saturn more than
seventy times while studying
the planet and its moons,
rings, and magnetosphere.