Facts About Saturn

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Fact 1: Saturn is the farthest planet out of the five planets that were initially known to the ancient astronomers. It was in 1610 that Galileo Galilei was able to identify Saturn using a telescope.

Fact 2: Galileo could observe two more objects on both sides of the planet Saturn. This observation made him think that there were two separate bodies, one on either side of the planet Saturn. He thought that this planet had three spheres.

Fact 3: The observations were continued for few years by Galileo, and he concluded that the other two bodies were handles or arms of Saturn.

Fact 4: In the year 1659, the astronomer Christian Huygens, was able to propose that Saturn had a thin, flat ring surrounding it. He used a more powerful telescope than that was used by Galileo.

Fact 5: An Italian astronomer in 1675, named Jean-Dominique Cassini, found that there are two rings, A and B, surrounding Saturn.

Fact 6: Saturn is made up of helium and hydrogen. The volume of Saturn is 755 times higher than that of the Earth.

Fact 7: The wind speed in the upper atmosphere of Saturn is 500 miles per hour especially in the equatorial region. In the atmosphere of Earth, the strongest hurricane wind moves at the speed of 110 miles per hour.

Fact 8: The winds on Saturn are very fast and combine with the heat released from the planet’s interior making the rings around it to appear as yellow and golden in color.

Fact 9: The NASA space crafts Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 discovered that the rings of Saturn are made of ice. The rings of Saturn extend thousands of kilometers from the planet while the depth of the rings vertically is 10 meters.

Fact 10: The moon of the planet Saturn, called Titan, is observed to be larger than the planet Mercury.

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