What Is the Distance From the Sun to Saturn

April 07, 2022 Post a Comment

Introduction

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the 2d-largest planet in our solar system. Like boyfriend gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Saturn is not the just planet to have rings, merely none are every bit spectacular or as complex as Saturn's. Saturn also has dozens of moons.

From the jets of water that spray from Saturn'southward moon Enceladus to the marsh gas lakes on smoggy Titan, the Saturn organisation is a rich source of scientific discovery and still holds many mysteries.

Namesake

The farthest planet from Globe discovered by the unaided human eye, Saturn has been known since ancient times. The planet is named for the Roman god of agronomics and wealth, who was likewise the male parent of Jupiter.

Potential for Life

Saturn's environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely as well farthermost and volatile for organisms to accommodate to.

While planet Saturn is an unlikely identify for living things to take agree, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Satellites like Enceladus and Titan, home to internal oceans, could peradventure back up life.

Size and Altitude

Size and Distance

With a radius of 36,183.7 miles (58,232 kilometers), Saturn is ix times wider than World. If Globe were the size of a nickel, Saturn would be about as big as a volleyball.

From an average distance of 886 one thousand thousand miles (1.4 billion kilometers), Saturn is ix.5 astronomical units away from the Dominicus. One astronomical unit (abbreviated equally AU), is the altitude from the Lord's day to Earth. From this altitude, it takes sunlight lxxx minutes to travel from the Sun to Saturn.

A 3D model of Saturn, the ringed gas giant planet. Credit: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD) › Download Options

Orbit and Rotation

Saturn has the 2nd-shortest twenty-four hours in the solar arrangement. One twenty-four hour period on Saturn takes but ten.7 hours (the time it takes for Saturn to rotate or spin around once), and Saturn makes a complete orbit around the Dominicus (a year in Saturnian fourth dimension) in near 29.4 Globe years (10,756 Earth days).

Its centrality is tilted by 26.73 degrees with respect to its orbit effectually the Sun, which is similar to Globe's 23.5-degree tilt. This means that, similar Earth, Saturn experiences seasons.

Moons

Saturn is home to a vast array of intriguing and unique worlds. From the haze-shrouded surface of Titan to crater-riddled Phoebe, each of Saturn'south moons tells another piece of the story surrounding the Saturn system. Currently, Saturn has 53 confirmed moons with 29 additional provisional moons awaiting confirmation.

Saturn and Titan — This Cassini image from 2012 shows Titan and its host planet Saturn. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Rings

Saturn's rings are thought to be pieces of comets, asteroids, or shattered moons that broke upward before they reached the planet, torn apart by Saturn'southward powerful gravity. They are made of billions of pocket-size chunks of ice and rock coated with other materials such as dust. The ring particles mostly range from tiny, dust-sized icy grains to chunks as big as a business firm. A few particles are as large every bit mountains. The rings would look mostly white if you looked at them from the cloud tops of Saturn, and interestingly, each band orbits at a dissimilar speed around the planet.

Saturn'southward ring system extends up to 175,000 miles (282,000 kilometers) from the planet, nonetheless the vertical superlative is typically near 30 feet (10 meters) in the chief rings. Named alphabetically in the gild they were discovered, the rings are relatively close to each other, with the exception of a gap measuring 2,920 miles (4,700 kilometers) in width called the Cassini Division that separates Rings A and B. The chief rings are A, B, and C. Rings D, E, F, and G are fainter and more recently discovered.

Starting at Saturn and moving outward, at that place is the D band, C ring, B ring, Cassini Division, A ring, F ring, G band, and finally, the E ring. Much further out, at that place is the very faint Phoebe band in the orbit of Saturn'south moon Phoebe.

Formation

Germination

Saturn took shape when the rest of the solar system formed nearly 4.5 billion years agone when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this gas giant. About 4 billion years ago, Saturn settled into its current position in the outer solar system, where it is the sixth planet from the Lord's day. Like Jupiter, Saturn is more often than not made of hydrogen and helium, the same 2 main components that make upward the Dominicus.

Structure

Similar Jupiter, Saturn is fabricated more often than not of hydrogen and helium. At Saturn'south center is a dense core of metals like atomic number 26 and nickel surrounded by rocky cloth and other compounds solidified by intense pressure and oestrus. It is enveloped past liquid metal hydrogen within a layer of liquid hydrogen –similar to Jupiter's cadre just considerably smaller.

It's hard to imagine, but Saturn is the only planet in our solar system with an average density that is less than water. The behemothic gas planet could float in a bathtub if such a jumbo thing existed.

Surface

Every bit a gas giant, Saturn doesn't have a truthful surface. The planet is generally swirling gases and liquids deeper downwardly. While a spacecraft would accept nowhere to land on Saturn, it wouldn't exist able to wing through unscathed either. The extreme pressures and temperatures deep inside the planet would crush, cook, and vaporize whatsoever spacecraft trying to wing into the planet.

Atmosphere

Saturn is blanketed with clouds that announced as faint stripes, jet streams, and storms. The planet is many different shades of yellowish, brown, and greyness.

Winds in the upper atmosphere achieve 1,600 feet per 2d (500 meters per second) in the equatorial region. In dissimilarity, the strongest hurricane-force winds on World elevation out at near 360 anxiety per 2d (110 meters per 2d). And the force per unit area – the same kind yous feel when you dive deep underwater – is so powerful it squeezes gas into a liquid.

Saturn'due south north pole has an interesting atmospheric feature – a six-sided jet stream. This hexagon-shaped design was first noticed in images from the Voyager I spacecraft and has been more than closely observed by the Cassini spacecraft since. Spanning about 20,000 miles (30,000 kilometers) beyond, the hexagon is a wavy jet stream of 200-mile-per-hr winds (about 322 kilometers per hour) with a massive, rotating storm at the center. In that location is no conditions feature like information technology anywhere else in the solar system.

Magnetosphere

Saturn'southward magnetic field is smaller than Jupiter'south but nevertheless 578 times as powerful as Earth'southward. Saturn, the rings, and many of the satellites lie totally within Saturn's enormous magnetosphere, the region of space in which the behavior of electrically charged particles is influenced more past Saturn'southward magnetic field than by the solar wind.

Aurorae occur when charged particles spiral into a planet's atmosphere along magnetic field lines. On World, these charged particles come from the solar wind. Cassini showed that at least some of Saturn's aurorae are like Jupiter'southward and are largely unaffected by the solar current of air. Instead, these aurorae are acquired by a combination of particles ejected from Saturn's moons and Saturn'south magnetic field'south rapid rotation charge per unit. But these "non-solar-originating" aurorae are not completely understood yet.

Resources

The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini (Gratis eBook)
NASA Photojournal: Saturn
National Space Science Data Center Gallery: Saturn

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Source: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/in-depth/

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