Saturn Information
Saturn (Roman god of agriculture) is the 6th planet from the sun, and 2nd largest. It's most usually thought of for its ring system.
Galileo was the first to spot Saturn's rings in 1610, using one of the first telescopes, but he didn't realize the rings were separate from the planet so he described them as handles. In 1655, Dutch astronomer, Christiaan Huygens was the first to correctly discern the nature of the rings of Saturn. Saturn is the most distant of the five planets known to ancient stargazers.
The atmosphere of Saturn is made up of hydrogen (88 %t) and helium (11 %) and traces of methane, ammonia, ammonia crystals. Trace amounts of ethane, acetylene, and phosphine are also present. Often confused with a star when viewed with the naked eye, Saturn can be clearly seen with a telescope or binoculars.
It has 18 known moons and an additional 12 newly discovered and unnamed satellites: Pan, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Calypso, Dione, Helene, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, & Phoebe.
This Image of "Saturn" is from the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn narrow angle camera took this image of Saturn on Feb. 16, 2004, from a distance of 66.1 million kilometers (41.1 million miles) in a special filter which reveals clouds and haze high in the atmosphere.
From Saturn, our visit gets even farther from home as we journey to Uranus.
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Also, check out our Full Detail Solar System Tour