Tour the solar system: Saturn

Often considered the most beautiful planet in the solar system, Saturn has many interesting features to explore — from its expansive ring system and volatile atmosphere to the different surface details of its four largest moons.

By Bill Andrews

Saturn’s rings more than double Saturn’s visual diameter.

Photo by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Whenever you think of “planets,” odds are a saturnian shape is the first that comes up. After all, what better way to signify some exotic alien world than distinguishing it with an intricate ring system? The sixth planet from the Sun, Saturn’s about 9.5 times as big across as Earth, spanning some 75,000 miles (121,000 kilometers); this means more than 700 Earths could fit inside. It’s so far from the Sun, about 891 million miles (1.43 billion kilometers), that the Sun appears only about 1 percent as bright as it does from Earth. And because Saturn’s density is only about 12.5 percent of Earth’s, which is less than water, the planet is buoyant! If you could find a body of water big enough, it’d float.

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	Mercury	Mercury	Venus	Venus
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