Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture and has a unique orbital pattern, taking 29.5 Earth years to complete a revolution around the sun. The planet is renowned for its visible rings, gas composition, and has 62 confirmed moons, including Titan, which has a dense atmosphere. Saturn has been visited by only four spacecraft, with notable missions including Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and Cassini-Huygens.

1. SATURN

2. How Was Saturn Named?
Saturn was named after the Roman god
of agriculture. According to myth,
Saturn introduced agriculture to his
people by teaching them how to farm
the land. Cronus (Saturn) In Greek
mythology, Cronus was the son of
Uranus and Gaea. He lead his brothers
and sisters, the Titans, in a revolt

3. Orbit and Rotation of Saturn
Saturn's average distance from the Sun
is 1,400,000,000 km. The average
orbital speed of Saturn is 9.69 km/s. It
takes the earth 365 days to orbit the
sun, Saturn takes 10,759 Earth days (or
about 29½ years), to revolve around the
sun; a year on Saturn is equivalent to
29.5 Earth years.

4. Characteristics of Saturn
• Rings
Saturn is the only planet in our planet
that has rings that are visible with a
simple telescope. Other planets, like
Uranus and Neptune, also have rings,
but they require a more powerful
telescope in order to see them.

6. • Time
Saturn’s orbit is extremely slow. 1 year
of Saturn is the same as 29 years on
earth. However, despite its slow orbit,
Saturn rotates extremely fast the
average day on Saturn is just under 11
earth hours. The fast rotation of Saturn
might also explain how the winds can
reach speeds of over 1800 km/h.

8. • Density
Even though Saturn is the second
largest planet in the solar system, it is
surprisingly light. This is because the
planet is made almost entirely out of
gas, primarily helium. It is impossible to
stand on the surface of Saturn, because
there is virtually no surface to stand on.

10. • Moons
The moons of Saturn are just as
interesting as the planet itself. Titan,
the largest of Saturn’s moons, is one of
very few moons that has its own dense
atmosphere. Iapetus is interesting
because one side of its surface is
covered with really dark material, while
the other side is covered with blindingly

12. • Chemical Composition
Saturn is predominantly composed of
hydrogen and helium, the two basic
gases of the universe. The planet also
bears traces of ices containing
ammonia, methane, and water

14. Spacecraft Saturn
Pioneer 11 1979 flyby
Voyager 1 1980 flyby
Voyager 2 1981 flyby
Cassini - Huygens 2004- 2017 orbiter
2005 Titan lander
Visits

15. • Pioneer 11
Spacecraft launched from Cape
Canaveral forty years ago, on April 5,
1973. Pioneer 11's path through
Saturn's outer rings took it within
21,000 km of the planet, where it
discovered two new moons (almost
smacking into one of them in
September 1979) and a new "F" ring.
The spacecraft also discovered and
charted the magnetosphere, magnetic

16. radiation from Saturn's interior and
found that its planet-sized moon, Titan,
was too cold to support life.

17. PIONEER
11

18. • Voyager
In November 1980, the Voyager 1 probe
visited the Saturn system. It sent back
the first high-resolution images of the
planet, rings, and satellites. Surface
features of various moons were seen for
the first time. Because of the earlier
discovery of a thick atmosphere on
Titan, the Voyager controllers at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory elected for

19. Almost a year later, in August
1981, Voyager 2 continued the study of
the Saturn system. More close-up
images of Saturn's moons were
acquired, as well as evidence of
changes in the rings. Voyager 2 probed
Saturn's upper atmosphere with its
radar, to measure temperature and
density profiles. Voyager 2found that at

20. 70 K (−203 °C) (i.e. 70 degrees above
absolute zero), while at the deepest
levels measured (120 kilopascals) the
temperature increased to
143 K (−130 °C). The north pole was
found to be 10 K cooler, although this
may be seasonal.

21. VOYAGER
1

22. VOYAGER
2

23. • Cassini–Huygens
On July 1, 2004, the Cassini–Huygens
spacecraft performed the SOI (Saturn
Orbit Insertion) maneuver and entered
into orbit around Saturn. Before the SOI,
Cassini had already studied the system
extensively. In June 2004, it had
conducted a close flyby of Phoebe,
sending back high-resolution images

24. CASSINI -
HUYGENS

25. Trivia’s
• Saturn is a flattened ball – Saturn
spins so quickly that the planet
flattens itself out into an oblate
spheroid.
• The first astronomers thought the
rings were moons – it wasn’t until
1655 that the Dutch astronomer
Christian Huygens used a better

26. • Saturn has only been visited 4 times
by spacecraft – Only 4 spacecraft sent
from Earth have ever visited Saturn,
and three were just brief flybys.
• Saturn has 62 moons - Saturn has 62
confirmed moons of which 9 are waiting to be
officially named. Saturn's largest
moon Titan is bigger than both Mercury
and Pluto. Titan has a very thick atmosphere
which is mostly nitrogen.

27. • The length of a day on Saturn was a
mystery until recently – Determining
the rotation speed of Saturn was
actually very difficult to do, because
the planet doesn’t have a solid
surface.
• You can see Saturn with your own
eyes – Saturn appears as one of the 5
planets visible with the unaided eye.

28. • Saturn’s rings are actually much
younger than the planet itself And
they most likely formed in the last 100
million years.
• There could be life near Saturn – Not
life on Saturn; the planet is way too
hostile to support life. But there could
be life on 1 of Saturn’s moon:
Enceladus.