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Forthcoming meetings

Speaker Meeting
Date: Friday, June 07, 2013
Time: 19:30
Subject: Strange Weather! Exploring the Giant Planets of our Solar System
Speaker: Dr Leigh Fletcher  (University of Oxford)
Location: United Reformed Church Hall, Newbury
Note: The speaker will be followed by the Society's AGM.
 
Beginners Meeting
No beginners meetings currently scheduled in the diary.
 
Observing Session
No observing sessions currently scheduled in the diary.
 
Special Meeting
Society visit to the national space centre
Date: Saturday, June 08, 2013
Time: 08:30
Location: National Space Centre, Leicester
Note: See the home page for details. Contact Ann Davies for more imformation.
 

 
 


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Planetary information

Click a planet in the list below and the information will be displayed.

Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto


Planetary information for Saturn

Saturn was the most distant of the five planets known to the ancients. Like Jupiter, Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Its volume is 755 times greater than that of Earth. Winds in the upper atmosphere reach 500 meters (1,600 feet) per second in the equatorial region. These super-fast winds, combined with heat rising from within the planet's interior, cause the yellow and gold bands visible in the atmosphere. Saturn's spectacular and complex rings are made mostly of water ice. Spacecraft images reveal braided rings, ringlets and spokes - dark features in the rings that circle the planet at different rates from that of the surrounding ring material. Saturn's ring system extends hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the planet, yet the vertical depth is typically about 10 meters (30 feet) in the main rings, although when viewed edge-on there are vertical formations in some rings that seem to pile up in bumps or ridges more than 3 kilometers (2 miles) tall.

Saturn is named for the Roman god of agriculture.

 
Discovery: Known by the Ancients
Position from the sun: 6th
Average distance from the Sun: 885,904,700 miles
1,426,725,400 kilometres
Perihelion:
(Closest point to the sun in orbital path)
838,519,000miles
1,349,467,000 kilometres
9.18 x Earth by comparison
Aphelion:
(Furthest point from the sun in orbital path)
934,530,000 miles
1,503,983,000 kilometres
9.89 x Earth by comparison
Equatorial radius of the planet: 37,449 miles
60,268 kilometres
9.45 x Earth by comparison
Plaentary circumference at the equator: 235,298 miles
378,675 kilometres
Volume: 62,526,000,000,000 miles3
62,526,000,000,000 kilometres3
763.60 x Earth by comparison
Mass of the planet: 568,510,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Kilogrammes
95.16 x Earth by comparison
Density of the planet: 0.70 gm3
0.13 x Earth by comparison
Surface area: 16,782,000,000 miles2
43,466,000,000 kilometres2
85.22 x Earth by comparison
Equatorial surface gravity:

34.11 feet/second2
10.40 metres/second2
If you weighed 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 106 pounds on Saturn

Escape velocity:
(The speed required to achieve orbit)
79,390 miles per hour
127,760 kilometres per hour
3.17 x Earth by comparison
Sidereal Rotation Period:
(Length of Day)
10.656 hours
Sidereal Orbit Period:
(Length of Year)
29.4 Earth years
Orbital velocity:
(The speed at which Saturn goes around the Sun)
21,637 miles per hour
34,821.00 kilomtetres per hour
0.33 x Earth by comparison
Orbital Circumference:
(The distance that Saturn travels to complete one orbit)
5,421,000,000 miles
8,725,000,000 kilometres
9.44 x Earth by comparison
Orbital eccentricity:
(How elliptical is Saturn's orbit around the Sun)
0.05°
3.24 x Earth by comparison
Orbital inclination:
(How tilted is the orbit of Saturn from the plane of the solar system)
2.484°
Equatorial inclination:
(How tilted is Saturn itself from a vertical axis)
26.73°
1.14 x Earth by comparison
Surface temperature: -178°C ( -288°F)
Contents of the Atmosphere: Hydrogen, Helium

 

 

 

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Graphics based on designs by Adrian West.

The site is maintained by Paul Thompson and members of the Society committee.
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