Rings+Around+the+Saturn

Rings Around the Saturn



 Welcome to Saturn... well, if you can get past her nine icy rings. She is one of the four gas giants of the solar system (right up there with Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus), which essentially means that, although she is large, she is mostly gas and liquid with a very small solid core. Her magnetism (gravitational pull) is similar to Earth, but she is not a very nice host to her visitors. Saturn's metallic hydrogen, liquid helium, and liquid hydrogen produce some pretty mean electrical activity. And, let's not overlook the strength of Saturn's average wind speed, which is very close to 650mph. Now, THAT could make for a very BAD hair day!

**Distance from the sun: **About 1,500,000,000 km (about 941,000,000 miles), but it can get as close as 1,350,000,000 km (about 840,000,000 miles) during its very eliptical (oval-shaped) trip around the sun (orbit). **Distance from Earth:** About 1,200,000,000 km (about 750,000,000 miles). That is like traveling around the Earth about 3,000 times. **Planetary Make-up:** 96% of the planet is made of hydrogen, and 3% is helium. The rings are made of frozen water/liquids and rocks. **Moons:** There are a whopping 60 moons (however, there are two more that are yet deemed official), but some are called moon-lets because of their tiny size. **Names of the moons:** There are just too many to name, but here are the top four: Pan (closest orbit to Saturn), Daphnis, Atlas, and Prometheus. **How the planet got its name: **It was named after the Roman god of Agriculture and time, possibly, because it has the slowest orbit around the sun of all the "bright planets" (the planets that can be seen with the naked eye).