The Solar System: Saturn

Saturn Facts

Diameter: 120,5361 km (74,897 miles)
Distance from Sun: 1,434 million km (891 million miles)

Time for one rotation: 10 hours 33 minutes
Time to go round the sun once: 29.5 years

Saturn is, of course, famous for its rings. They are 280,000 km across (175,000 miles) but only 975 metres (3,200 feet) deep. The beautiful rings are not solid. They are made up of bits of ice, dust and rock.

One of the moons of Saturn - Titan - has an atmosphere, it is also bigger than the planet Mercury.

It is very windy on Saturn. Winds around the equator can be 1,800 kilometers per hour (1,118 miles per hour). On Earth, the fastest winds "only" get to about 400 kilometers per hour (250 miles per hour).

Traveling to Saturn by car at 117 kph (70 mph) it would take you 1,292 years when Saturn is closest to Earth. It would take 1,595 years when Saturn is at its farthest.

Earth Facts

Diameter: 12,742 Km (7,896 miles)
Distance from Sun: 150 million km (93 million miles)

Time for one rotation: 24 hours
Time to go round the sun once: 365 days

The Solar System page 9