Saturn is the most beautiful star in the solar system family planet, because it has a wide and bright halo, just like wearing a hat on a round head, which is very cute.

Saturn's aura is made up of countless rock fragments, large and small, which are wrapped in ice. They are all on the same plane and revolve around Saturn along their respective orbits. Under the sunlight, the large and small stones wrapped in ice reflect many colors, forming seven concentric colored rings.

Saturn's rings lie on Saturn's equatorial plane. Before space exploration, Saturn was observed to have five rings from the ground, including three main rings (A, B and C) and two dark rings (D and E). B ring is wide and bright. It has a C-shaped ring on the inside and a ring on the outside.

Between ring A and ring B, there is a Cassini seam with a width of about 4,800 kilometers, which was discovered by astronomer Cassini in 1675. The reason for the annular gap is that there is a satellite running in the halo, and the gravity of the satellite leads to it.

The inner radius of ring B is 9 1500 km, the outer radius is 1 16500 km, and the width is 25000 km, so two earths can be placed side by side. The inner radius of ring A is 12 1500 km, the outer radius is 137000 km, and the width is 15500 km. C ring is very dark. It extends from the inner edge of ring B to the place only 12000 km away from Saturn's surface, and its width is about 19000 km.

In 1969, a darker D ring was found inside the C ring, which almost touched the surface of Saturn. There is also an E-ring outside the A-ring, which consists of very sparse material fragments and extends beyond five or six Saturn radii. 1In September 1979, Pioneer 1 1 detected two new rings-F ring and G ring.

The F ring is very narrow, with a width of less than 800 kilometers. The distance from the center of Saturn is 2.33 Saturn radii, just outside the A ring. G-ring is far from Saturn, and it is distributed in a vast area between 10 and 15 Saturn's radius from Saturn's center.

Physical characteristics of Saturn

Because of its low density, high-speed rotation and fluid variability, Saturn's shape is an ellipsoid, that is, its polar axis is relatively flat and its equator is relatively prominent, and the ratio of its equatorial diameter to polar axis diameter is about 10% (the former is 120536 km and the latter is 108728 km).

Although other gas planets are ellipsoids, they are not very prominent. Although the density of Saturn's core is much higher than that of water, due to its thick atmosphere, Saturn is still the only planet in the solar system with a density lower than that of water, with a specific gravity of 0.69 g/cm? .

Saturn's mass is 95 times that of the earth, while Jupiter's mass is 3 18 times that of the earth, but Jupiter's diameter is only about 1.2 1 times that of Saturn. Jupiter and Saturn together account for 92% of the total mass of planets of the solar system.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Saturn