Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, is the second-largest planet in the solar system and has 146 moons as of Jun 8, 2023, according to NASA.
Facts About Saturn and Its Rings
1. The moons range in size from larger than the planet Mercury to as small as a sports arena.
2. The stunning rings around the planet make it unique. Notably, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune also have rings, but Saturn’s rings are prominent.
3. Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed Saturn’s rings with his telescope in 1610.
4. Saturn is more than nine times larger than Earth in diameter. Its mass is 95 times the mass of Earth.
5. Saturn has seven large main rings. They were named for a letter in the alphabet in the order they were discovered. The rings extend to 282,000 kilometres from the planet.
6. There’s no confirmation of how old the rings are and where they came from. But astronomers say they are made of pieces of ice and rock that range in size from a grain to a boulder.
7. Cassini spacecraft recently confirmed that the material of the inner rings keeps falling onto Saturn, which means the rings are slowly disappearing.