FACTS:
Satellites: 62 moons
- Galileo was the first to observe Saturn with a telescope in 1610.
- Saturn's rings remained unique in the known solar system until 1977 when very faint rings were discovered around Uranus and shortly thereafter around Jupiter and Neptune.
- Saturn was first visited by Pioneer 11 in 1979 and later by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Currently, Cassini is in orbit around Saturn, while the Huygens probe landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
- Saturn's equatorial and polar diameters vary by almost 10 percent, 74,901 miles and 67,563 miles, respectively. This is the result of its rapid rotation and fluid state.
SATURN
INFORMATION:
- MASS: ≈ 5.6846×1026 kg (About 95 times the mass of Earth!)
- DIAMETER: ≈ 67,560 miles
- TEMPERATURE: ≈ -285° F ("surface"); ≈ 21,092° F (core)