Planet Saturn Facts

Discovered in the seventeenth century, on 25^th March, 1655 to be precise, by Christiaan Huygens who was a Dutch Astronomer of renown. Saturn is one of the most beautiful and enigmatic planets, distinguished by its rings and dozens of satellites. In this article, I explore the Planet Mars facts, which will reveal the true nature of Earth's 'Gaseous' cousin.

Physical Characteristics
Saturn's location is beyond Jupiter in the Solar system. They both along with Uranus and Neptune, are the gas planets. Here are some interesting facts about its physical characteristics.

• Saturn is the second largest planet after Jupiter and has a mass which is 95.152 times earth's mass, that is 5.6846 x 10²⁶ Kg!
• Saturn has an equatorial radius of 60,268 km, which is about roughly 8.55 times Earth's radius. The planet has a volume of 8.2713 x 10¹⁴ km³, which is about 763 times Earth's Radius!
• Saturn has a mean density of 0.687 gm/cm³, which is less than that of water. So, if you could find a big enough tank of water, Saturn would float in it!
• Saturn is primarily made up of Hydrogen, along with small amounts of Helium and other elements like Methane, Ammonia, Ethane, Hydrogen deuteride and Ethane.
• Saturn is flattened at the poles and bulging at the equatorial region, which makes it shaped like an oblate spheroid in shape. That is why, Saturn's radius differs considerably at the poles and at the equator by about 10%.
• At the equator, the acceleration due to gravity on Saturn is 10.44m/s². It is just a bit more than the acceleration due to gravity on Earth, which is 9.8 m/s². The escape velocity, that is the velocity that must be attained to escape a planet's gravitational pull is 35.5 km/s for Saturn.
• Saturn has more than 200 observed satellites! Out of which 62 have regular fixed orbits. Titan is the largest of Saturn's satellites. It is the only satellite which has an atmosphere and the only one which may have traces of life!

Inner Structure
The inner structure of Saturn is not directly observable due to its thick gaseous blanket. So, here are some interesting planet mars facts based on research which has indirectly investigated its inner structure.

• Like Jupiter, Saturn has a very small dense and rocky core, which is enveloped by Hydrogen and Helium. The core has a thick outer shell of metallic Hydrogen, which is then enveloped by Hydrogen and Helium.
• Saturn is very hot from inside. Its hot interior reaches a temperature of 11,700 ^o Celsius at the inner dense core. The mean surface temperature is about 134 Kelvin, that is about -103 ^o Celsius.
• One interesting fact about Saturn is that the quantity of heat energy it radiates is roughly 2.5 times more than it receives from the Sun. Most of this generated heat comes from heating of planet core due to its compression under gravity! This phenomenon of heat generation due to gravitational contraction, known as Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism, is also seen in Jupiter. Researchers are still probing alternative mechanisms that could explain the extra radiated heat.

Atmosphere
The atmosphere on Saturn is nothing like the atmosphere on Earth. Here are some facts about its atmosphere.

• It is primarily made of Hydrogen in molecular form (about 96.3%), Helium (3.25%). the other marginally present elements are Acetylene, Ammonia, Methane , Ethane and Phosphine.
• Clouds in the lower reaches of Saturn's atmosphere are made up of ammonium hydrosulphide and water. The upper level clouds are made up of ammonia crystals! It is an atmosphere where earth based life wouldn't survive!
• The winds on Saturn are very strong, touching speeds up to 1800 km/hr.
• The layered atmosphere has a varying temperature range from -23 degree Celsius to -153 degree Celsius..

Orbit

• A year on Saturn is equivalent to about 10759 earth days or about 29.5 earth years
• It revolves around the Sun at an average speed of 9.69 km/s.
• Saturn's closest distance of approach from the Sun is 1,353,572,956 km, while the farthest distance from the Sun is 1,513,325,783 km.

Magnetic Field
Saturn does have a magnetic field which gave the first clues about the nature of its inner core. Here are some facts about its magnetosphere.

• Saturn has a magnetic field weaker than earth. It is about 0.2 Gauss at the equator. The probable mechanism which creates magnetic field is the dynamo created by the metallic Hydrogen layer around the solid core.
• Saturn's magnetic field deflects the solar wind, which is a stream of high energy particles. One of Saturn's satellites, Titan, falls within the magnetosphere of the planet and therefore gets sheltered from the solar wind bombardment to some extent.

Rings
The rings of Saturn are what set it apart from all the other planets of the solar system. They are visible from Earth with the use of high resolution telescopes. The rings probably formed from the crushing of some large satellite in the past.

• Saturn rings are made up of gas and dust of sizes, varying from micrometers to many meters. They are mostly made up of ice mixed with dust and chemicals.
• The rings are separated by gaps and form different bands. Most of them have an average thickness of 10 meters. The densest rings exist from 7,000 km to 8,000 km above the Saturn's surface.
• The estimated total mass of the rings is about 3 x 10¹⁹ kg.
• There are many 'shepherding' satellites within the rings. One of Saturn's moons, Rhea has a small ring system of its own, around it.

Saturn has been explored widely through many space missions in the past. With each passing day, we know more about this planet as the space probes keep sending new data.