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Saturn is surrounded by millions of pieces of rock, dust and ice. They have formed into a beautiful, very thin ring system. Although the rings are about 250,000 km across, they are only a kilometre or two thick.
Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture and his name is the origin of the English word 'Saturday'.
Galileo was the first to spot that something was strange about the shape of Saturn, although his telescope was not powerful enough to see that the planet was surrounded by rings.
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Saturn has more moons than any other planet in the solar system. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is as big as Mercury. |
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6th nearest planet to the Sun
2nd largest planet
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Diameter
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Mass
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Distance from Sun
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Orbital time
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Rotation period days
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Major moons
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120,536 km
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5.68 x 1026 kg
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1,429.4 million km
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29.5 Earth years
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0.45 Earth days
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18
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How does that compare with the Earth?
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Diameter |
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9.45 the diameter of the Earth
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Mass |
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95 the mass of the Earth
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Distance from Sun |
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9.55 the distance of the Earth from the Sun
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Orbit time |
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Saturn takes 29.46 Earth years to orbit the Sun |
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