Facts About Saturn
One of the interesting facts about Saturn is that it has been named after the Roman God of Agriculture. In 1610, Galileo was the first person to observe this planet, through a telescope and became highly puzzled by its anomalous form. It was believed to be the only planet to have, unique rings around it, until in 1977 when some low resolution rings were discovered around Uranus also. Saturn is sixth planet from the sun.
The planet is quite famous for the amazing beauty of its ring system. These rings are made up of millions of particles including the large chunks of snow and ice. This beautiful system of rings is split into various parts and the gap separating the glowing A and B rings, is known as Cassini Division. The rings around Saturn are very thin and have been seen in different positions and at different tilts, hence having no fixed pattern. Scientists believe that these rings will vanish one day in about 50 million years. Either they will get dispersed in the atmosphere, or they will get pulled by planets own gravity.
Saturn is the second largest planet after Jupiter having a diameter of 120536km. Saturn is so big that 755 earths can be carved out of it. Isn’t it one of the most astonishing facts about Saturn? The planet has the maximum number of moons i.e. 33 known moons and even more keep on being discovered now and then. The Largest moon of Saturn is known as Titan and is the only moon in the solar system, which has atmosphere.
The speed of blowing wind is quite high on Saturn, and sometimes can reach up to 1100 miles an hour. The planet’s atmosphere is basically composed of Hydrogen along with negligible amounts of methane and helium. Saturn is classified as a gas planet and has been able to preserve its original primitive gases due to the large distance, separating it from the sun.
Saturn is known to be the only planet in solar system, having a density lesser than water. Amongst the facts about Saturn, there is a special feature which is known as Hexagon Cloud Formation, which has been recently photographed by the Cassini spaceship.
Saturn rotates at a very high speed on its own axis and as a result it has flattened at the poles. One Saturn day is equivalent to ten and a half hours on earth and one Saturn year equals twenty nine and a half earth years. The planet is 9.5 AU from Sun.
All these facts about Saturn have been collected over a long period and during explorations by many spacecrafts, which include Voyagers 1 and 2, Pioneer 11, Huygens and Cassini.