Saturn is the outermost of the 5 already in the middle Ages known planets. In 1610 Galileo Galilei saw as first man the Saturn through a telescope. To his amazement, he saw a group of objects surrounding the planet from all sides, which he later called “Handle”. 1659 the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens announced, that this was a ring encircling the planet. 1675 the Italian-born astronomer Jean Dominique Cassini discovered a distance between the rings, which are now called A and B rings.
Saturn is a gaseous planet like Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. It mainly consists of hydrogen (H) and helium (He). Its volume is 755 times larger than the Earth. Winds in the upper atmosphere reach speeds of 500 m/sec at the equator of Saturn (On Earth the strongest hurricanes achieve a top speed of 110 m/sec). These super-fast winds, combined with the heat from the interior of Saturn, cause the yellow and gold stripes in its atmosphere.
The ring system of Saturn is the largest and most complex in our solar system. It has an area of hundreds of thousands kilometers from Saturn. Saturn and its rings could occupy the space between the Earth and Moon. In the early 80’s the two Voyager probes discovered that Saturn’s rings are mainly composed of water ice and they found different types of rings. Some of the small moons orbit the planet within the ring system. The material in the rings varies in size from a few microns to a few km/s.
Saturn has 62 known moons. The largest, Titan, is a bit bigger than the planet Mercury. Titan is shrouded in a thick nitrogen-rich atmosphere, similar to the Earth´s early atmosphere. Further studies on this moon might bring us more information about the formation of the planets and perhaps also about the early days of the earth.
In addition to the Titan Saturn has many small icy moons. All moons of Saturn are unique – like Enceladus, which shows surface changes, and Iapetus , whose one hemisphere is darker than asphalt and the other is brighter than snow.
Saturn, its rings and its moons are under the influence of the enormous magnetic field. The behavior of electrically charged particles in this region in space is more influenced by the magnetic field of Saturn than by the solar winds. Current images from the Hubble Space Telescope show that the Aurorae occuring at the polar regions of Saturn are similar to those on the Earth’s poles.
The next big step for our knowledge of Saturn was accomplished when the Cassini/Huygens probe started its journey to Saturn in October 1997. The probe reached Saturn on 1 July 2004. The Cassini orbiter carried an extra lander called Huygens. On 14 January 2005, Huygens started its descent to the moon Titan. During the descent to Titan Huygens collected a total of 474 MBit of data, thereform 606 images, which were transmitted via Cassini to Earth. Cassini is currently (2016) still in the orbit of Saturn and makes further tests.
| Discovery date | unknown |
| Semi-major axis | 1 433 446 790 km = 1.433 x 109 km (9.582 AU) Comparison: 9.582 x Earth |
| Perihelion | 1 352 514 342 km = 1.352 x 109 km (9.041 AU) Comparison: 9.041 x Earth |
| Aphelion | 1 514 379 238 km = 1.514 x 109 km (10.123 AU) Comparison: 10.123 x Earth |
| Diameter | 120 536 km = 1.20536 x 105 km Comparison: 9.449 x Earth |
| Circumference | 378 675 km = 3.78675 x 105 km |
| Volume | 827 130 000 000 000 km3 = 8.2713 x 1014 km3 Comparison: 763.6 x Earth |
| Mass | 568 510 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 kg = 5.68510 x 1026 kg Comparison: 95.16 x Earth |
| Density | 0.70 g/cm3 Comparison: 0.127 x Earth |
| Surface area | 43 466 000 000 km2 = 4.3466 x 1010 km2 Comparison: 85.22 x Earth |
| Surface gravity | 7.207 m/s2 Comparison: Someone with 100 kg on Earth, would weigh 74 kg on Saturn. |
| Escape velocity | 127 760 km/h = 35 490 m/s Comparison: 3.17 x Erde |
| Sidereal rotation period | 0.44401 Earth days 10.656 hours |
| Orbital period (Length of a year) |
29.4 Earth years 10 755.7 Earth days |
| Average orbital speed | 34 821 km/h = 9672.4 m/s Comparison: 0.865 x Earth |
| Eccentricity | 0.0541506 Comparison: 3.24 x Earth |
| Inclination | 2.484° |
| Axial tilt | 26.73° Comparison: 1.14 x Earth |
| Peripheral orbit | 8 725 000 000 km = 8.725 x 109 km Comparison: 9.439 x Earth |
| Minimum/Maximum surface temperature |
-178 °C = 95 K Comparison: The temperature of the Earth is ~ 185/331 K |
| Composition of the atmosphere |
Hydrogen (H2), Helium (He) Comparison: The atmosphere of the Earth is mainly composed of N2 and O2. |
Moons:
Saturn has 53 known moons with an additional 29 moons awaiting confirmation of their discovery – that is a total of 82 moons.