23 Facts About Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter.

Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock .

Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere.

Saturn is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture and father of Jupiter.

Saturn is a gas giant composed predominantly of hydrogen and helium.

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The temperature, pressure, and density inside Saturn all rise steadily toward the core, which causes hydrogen to be a metal in the deeper layers.

Standard planetary models suggest that the interior of Saturn is similar to that of Jupiter, having a small rocky core surrounded by hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of various volatiles.

Analysis of the distortion shows that Saturn is substantially more centrally condensed than Jupiter and therefore contains a significantly larger amount of material denser than hydrogen near its centre.

Winds on Saturn are the second fastest among the Solar System's planets, after Neptune's.

Saturn has an intrinsic magnetic field that has a simple, symmetric shape—a magnetic dipole.

The visible features on Saturn rotate at different rates depending on latitude, and multiple rotation periods have been assigned to various regions .

An estimate of Saturn's rotation based on a compilation of various measurements from the Cassini, Voyager and Pioneer probes is.

Traditionally, most of Saturn's moons have been named after Titans of Greek mythology.

Saturn is probably best known for the system of planetary rings that makes it visually unique.

Some moons of Saturn, including Pandora and Prometheus, act as shepherd moons to confine the rings and prevent them from spreading out.

Saturn has been known since prehistoric times, and in early recorded history it was a major character in various mythologies.

Saturn is known as "Shani" and judges everyone based on the good and bad deeds performed in life.

Saturn's rings require at least a 15-mm-diameter telescope to resolve and thus were not known to exist until Christiaan Huygens saw them in 1655 and published about this in 1659.

The spacecraft studied Saturn's rings, revealing the thin F-ring and the fact that dark gaps in the rings are bright when viewed at high phase angle, meaning that they contain fine light-scattering material.

Saturn's gravity was used to direct the spacecraft's trajectory towards Uranus.

Saturn is the most distant of the five planets easily visible to the naked eye from Earth, the other four being Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter.

Saturn appears brighter when the rings are angled such that they are more visible.

For example, during the opposition of 17 December 2002, Saturn appeared at its brightest due to a favorable orientation of its rings relative to the Earth, even though Saturn was closer to the Earth and Sun in late 2003.