page_title: Saturn
section_title: Physical features
hierarchical_section_title: Saturn / Physical features
caption_attribution_description: English: Old drawing of Saturn by Robert Hooke. R indicates Saturn's globe, the two letters a indicate the expected overlap of the globe on the rings. Hooke's shading on the rings to the right of the right-hand a only (i.e. not at the left-hand a), indicates the shadow of the globe on the rings. The two letters b indicate the expected overlap of the rings on the globe. Hooke's shading on the globe between the right-hand and left-hand bs could indicate the shadow of the rings on the globe, or the faint C-ring faintly blocking part of the globe. The abbreviations marked around Saturn indicate directions: Sep. for Septentrional or northern; Mer. for Meridional; Occ. for Occidental or western; and Ori. for Oriental or eastern.
context_page_description: Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is one of the four gas giant planets, along with Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.
  Inside Saturn is probably a core of iron, nickel, silicon and oxygen compounds, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, then a layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium and finally, an outer gaseous layer.
  Saturn has 67 known moons orbiting the planet. 38 are officially named and 29 are waiting to be named. The largest moon is Titan, which is larger in volume than the planet Mercury. Titan is the second-largest moon in the Solar System. The largest moon is Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. There is also a very large system of rings around Saturn. These rings are made of ice with smaller amounts of rocks and dust. Some people believe that the rings were caused from a moon impact or other event. Saturn is about 1,433,000,000 km on average from the Sun. Saturn takes 29.6 Earth years to revolve around the Sun.
  Saturn was named after the Roman god Saturnus. Saturn's symbol is ♄ which is the symbol of Saturnus' sickle.
context_section_description: Saturn is an oblate spheroid, meaning that it is flattened at the poles, and it swells out around its equator. The planet's equatorial diameter is 120,536 km (74,898 mi), while its polar diameter (the distance from the north pole to the south pole) is 108,728 km (67,560 mi); a 9% difference. Saturn has a flattened shape due to its very fast rotation, once every 10.8 hours.
  Saturn is the only planet in the Solar System that is less dense than water. Even though the planet's core is very dense, it has a gaseous atmosphere, so the average specific density of the planet is 0.69 g/cm³. This means if Saturn could be placed in a large pool of water, it would float.
caption: Drawing of Saturn by Robert Hooke in 1666
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