Saturn
Do you know what the sixth planet from the sun is? Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun, and it is the second largest planet in the solar system. The atmosphere on Saturn is mostly composed of helium and methane. Saturn is the only planet that is less dense then water. Saturn is considered one of the most beautiful planets due to its spectacular ring system. Many people think that Saturn's rings were formed from larger moons. The rings show that there is a great amount of water in them.
You probably would have guessed that Saturn is a planet with many moons and many rings. Two of Saturn's moons are Rhea and Dione. From the south and southeast Rhea and Dione look like two blue dots. Many pictures have been taken of Saturn from telescopes to the Voyager 2 to the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope took images of a storm on Saturn, and the storm measured the east-west distance of the Earth.
Saturn has 18 known moons, the largest number of satellites of any planet in the solar system. In 1995, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered objects that could be four new moons. Saturn's gases glow at far-ultraviolet wavelenghts. This happens as a result of the bombardment. The bombardment occurs when the aurora is made as trapped charged particles precipitating from the atmosphere collide with atmospheric gases. The wavelengths are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere.
Saturn's rings are made up of many chunks of ice ranging from the size of a pebble to a car. Because Saturn is too far away, only the dayside of the planet is visible from the earth. Before the development of the telescope,the gas giant Saturn was the most distant planet known to astronomers. Saturn also recieves 1% of the sunlight that Earth does.
| Characteristic | Measurement |
|---|---|
| Mass (kg) | 5.688e+26 |
| Mass (Earth = 1) | 9.5181e+01 |
| Equatorial radius (km) | 60,268 |
| Equatorial radius (Earth = 1) | 9.4494e+00 |
| Mean density (gm/cm^3) | 0.69 |
| Mean distance from the Sun (km) | 1,429,400,000 |
| Mean distance from the Sun (Earth = 1) | 9.5388 |
| Rotational period (hours) | 10.233 |
| Orbital period (years) | 29.458 |
| Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) | 9.67 |
| Orbital eccentricity | 0.0560 |
| Tilt of axis | 25.33° |
| Orbital inclination | 2.488° |
| Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec^2) | 9.05 |
| Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec) | 35.49 |
| Visual geometric albedo | 0.47 |
| Magnitude (Vo) | 0.67 |
| Mean cloud temperature | -125°C |
| Atmospheric pressure (bars) | 1.4 |
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