Planet 6 of 8
Saturn
Lord of the rings
Saturn's ring system — billions of icy fragments, some the size of houses — makes it the most recognisable world in the sky, orbited by a family of extraordinary moons.
Quick facts
- Type
- Gas giant
- Distance from Sun
- 9.58 AU
- Diameter
- 116,460 km
- Mass
- 95.2 × Earth
- Surface gravity
- 10.44 m/s²
- Day length
- 10.7 hours
- Year length
- 29.5 Earth years
- Moons
- 146
- Average temperature
- -140 °C
- Composition
- Hydrogen and helium; the least dense planet
Fun facts
- It is less dense than water; it would float in a big enough ocean.
- Titan has lakes and rivers of liquid methane.
- Enceladus sprays water plumes from an underground ocean.
- The rings are only tens of metres thick in places.