Saturn's Rings Are Only 10 Metres Thick

Fact of the day: Saturn's rings are mostly only 10 metres thick, but some can be kilometres thick.

Saturn is the fifth planet from the sun at 9 astronomical units (1.429 billion km) away from the sun. It is the second largest planet in the solar system.
Saturn is famous for its ring system, which is made up mostly chunks of ice, varying from the size of grains of sand, to tens of metres wide. Saturn's rings extend over 120,700 km out from the planets equator.

(below) Saturn and its rings.


Saturn is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium, both in liquid and gaseous form. In its atmosphere it has a hexagon shape surrounding its north pole, but it is not currently known what actually causes the formation of this hexagon.

Saturn takes 10,759 Earth days (about 29.5 Earth years) to orbit the sun once, and takes between 10 hours and 10 minutes, and 10 hours and 40 minutes to rotate once on its axis, depending on your latitude.


(above) Saturn

(below) Saturn's hexagonal north pole.



Images from NASA, https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/11/22/spacecrafts-ring-grazing-maneuver-to-deliver-new-science-from-saturn/
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html



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