Key facts
- Scale fact
- 116,460 kmdiameter
- Estimated age
- ~4.5 billion years
- Composition
- Hydrogen and helium
- Temperature
- ~134 K cloud tops
Saturn
116,460 kmdiameter
Visual creditCassini 2008 / NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute / Public domainSource: Wikimedia Commons
Details
Saturn is the second-largest planet and the least dense, with an average density below that of water. Beneath its bright rings lies a hydrogen-helium atmosphere with fast jet streams and storms that can wrap around the whole planet.
Saturn has no solid surface: pressure turns its hydrogen-rich atmosphere into progressively denser fluid with depth. Its mean density is lower than liquid water, even though the deep interior contains far more than gas at ordinary conditions. The main rings extend hundreds of thousands of kilometers across yet are commonly only tens of meters thick, and consist mostly of water-ice particles ranging from dust to house-sized blocks.
Links
- Editorial guides
- Universe journey
- Asteroid belt & Jupiter
- Preset views
- Wikipedia
- Saturn on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Saturn on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Saturn falls between NGC 4395 Black Hole and HLX-1. The band uses nearby Gas giant planet records.
Sources
References for Saturn
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Saturn — Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Cassini 2008 / NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute, Public domain)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.