Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball of
mostly hydrogen and helium. Surrounding by 53 confirmed and nine provisional
moons, Saturn is home to some of the most fascinating landscapes in our solar
system. Like Jupiter, Saturn is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, the same
two main components that make up the sun. Saturn rotates in the same direction
as the Earth, which is west to east, but it does this far faster than Earth,
spinning around once in just 10.7 hours. While the days on Saturn are short,
the years are long. The sixth planet from the sun takes 29 Earth years, or
10,756 Earth days, to complete one revolution around the sun. As a gas giant,
Saturn doesn't have a true surface. The planet is mostly swirling gases and
liquids. While a spacecraft would have nowhere to land on Saturn, it wouldn't
be able to fly through unscathed either. The extreme pressures and temperatures
deep inside the planet would crush, melt and vaporize a metal spacecraft trying
to fly through the planet. Like Jupiter, Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen and
helium. At Saturn's center is a dense core of rock, ice, water, and other
compounds made solid by the intense pressure and heat. It is enveloped by
liquid metallic hydrogen, inside a layer of liquid hydrogen -- similar to
Jupiter's core but considerably smaller. It's hard to imagine, but Saturn is
the only planet in our solar system that is less dense than water. The giant
gas planet could float in a bathtub -- if such a colossal thing existed.
Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, is a bit bigger than the planet Mercury.
Titan is the second-largest moon in the solar system; only Jupiter's moon
Ganymede is bigger.
(Adapted from Encarta Encyclopedia and NASA site
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov)
