One of five "naked eye" planets known to the ancients. Saturn is named for the Roman god of
agriculture, also linked to Kronos, Greek god of time, father of Jupiter and king of the gods. (The others are Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter)
Yellowish color; at times the 3rd brightest planet in night sky
Physical Characteristics
Second largest planet in the solar system, after Jupiter.
Equatorial diameter 120,536 kilometers (74,898 miles) at cloud tops
Polar diameter 108,728 kilometers (67,560 miles), making it the most oblate (flattened) planet.
Density 0.69 (water = 1), the least dense planet and the only one lighter than water
Volume 764 times that of Earth, but only 95 times more massive
Chemical composition primarily hydrogen and helium, thus accounting for its low density
Orbit
Sixth planet from the Sun, between Jupiter and Uranus
Mean distance from Sun 1.43 billion kilometers (890 million miles), approximately 10 times the
distance from Earth to the sun
Brightness of sunlight at Saturn 1 percent of that at Earth
Length of a Saturn year is 29.42 Earth years
Length of a Saturn day is 10 hours, 39.4 minutes
Poles tilted 29 degrees relative to the plane of its orbit around the Sun
Environment
Saturn's atmosphere above clouds is approximately 94 percent hydrogen and 6 percent helium
Winds near Saturn's equator blow toward east at 500 meters per second (1,100 miles per hour),
making Saturn the windiest planet
Temperature at Saturn's cloud tops -139 C (-218 F)
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