gas giant
Saturn
The ringed planet: a gas giant less dense than water, circled by bright icy rings and a large family of moons, including Titan.
- Distance from Earth today
- 1.28 billion km8.556 AU · light: 1 h 11 min
- Distance from the Sun today
- 1.41 billion km9.425 AU
- As of
- 2 November 2026Live distance and chart →
Where it is today
Top view of the plane of Earth’s orbit, compressed distance scale. Open on the big map with the time slider →
Facts
- Diameter
- 120,536 km
- Mass
- 568 × 10²⁴ kg
- Density
- 687 kg/m³
- Surface gravity
- 9.0 m/s²
- Escape velocity
- 35.5 km/s
- Rotation period
- 10.7 h
- Length of day
- 10.7 h
- Mean distance from the Sun
- 1.43 billion km (9.572 AU)
- Perihelion
- 1.36 billion km
- Aphelion
- 1.51 billion km
- Orbital period
- 29.42 years
- Mean orbital velocity
- 9.7 km/s
- Orbital eccentricity
- 0.052
- Orbital inclination
- 2.5°
- Axial tilt
- 26.7°
- Mean temperature
- -140 °C
- Surface pressure
- no solid surface
- Known moons
- 274
- Rings
- yes
- Global magnetic field
- yes
Source of the figures: NASA Planetary Fact Sheet (public domain).
Description
Saturn is the second-largest planet and the least dense one – on average lighter than water. Its famous rings are made of countless pieces of water ice, from grains of dust to boulders, spread into a sheet that is enormously wide but extremely thin. Above its north pole a long-lived six-sided jet stream, the hexagon, circles the planet. Saturn has more known moons than any other planet, among them cloud-covered Titan and the geyser moon Enceladus. Pioneer 11 and both Voyagers flew past it, and Cassini orbited it from 2004 to 2017, delivering the Huygens probe to Titan before ending its mission with a deliberate plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.
Moons
- Mimasmajor moonDiameter: 396 km
- Enceladusmajor moonDiameter: 504 km
- Tethysmajor moonDiameter: 1,062 km
- Dionemajor moonDiameter: 1,123 km
- Rheamajor moonDiameter: 1,527 km
- Titanmajor moonDiameter: 5,150 km
- Hyperionregular moonDiameter: 270 km
- Iapetusmajor moonDiameter: 1,469 km
- Phoebeirregular moonDiameter: 213 km
- Janusco-orbital moonDiameter: 178 km
- Epimetheusco-orbital moonDiameter: 116 km
We describe 11 of the 274 known moons (count from the NASA Planetary Fact Sheet) – the largest and most interesting.