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Moons 31
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and is the second largest in the solar system. Its equatorial diameter is 119,300 kilometers (74,130 miles). Much of what is known about the planet is due to the Voyager explorations in 1980-81. Saturn is visibly flattened at the poles. This is a result of the very fast rotation of the planet on its axis. Its day is 10 hours, 39 minutes long, and it takes 29.5 Earth years to revolve about the Sun. This was the last image Voyager sent back of Saturn. It had never been seen from its darker side before.
SATURN NEWS.
Its spectacular ring system is so big that it would cover the space between the Earth and moon. Saturn's rings consist of individually orbiting bits of ice and rock ranging from as small as a grain to as big as a barn sized boulder.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft is on track to reach Saturn in summer 2004. Before it reaches Saturn, however, the spacecraft will release a tiny probe called Huygens that will parachute into Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Astronomers think that the environment on Titan is very similar to primordial conditions here on planet Earth billions of years ago. Huygens will take more than a thousand pictures and countless samples as it travels down to the surface in January 2005.
Saturn movie Quicktime 1 meg.
A sequence of Voyager images was used to generate this movie showing the movement of the rings.