What is so special about Saturn?
With its beautiful retinue of rings and 40-odd moons, Saturn may be the most complex and fascinating member of our solar system. It is the second largest planet, after Jupiter, but holds several records of its own. It is the least dense planet – it would float in water – and also the most squashed, being 120,000 km across at the equator but only 108,000km from pole to pole. Its rapid rotation creates this flattened shape. Saturn’s signature rings provide astronomers with a unique model of the disc of ice and gas that gave birth to all of the planets. And among its moons are Enceladus – blindingly white and spewing water vapour from its south pole – the mysteriously black and white Iapetus, and the gigantic moon Titan, the only satellite in the solar system with an atmosphere.
