Saturn

Saturn

Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system and one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Saturn is very similar to Jupiter in composition - a gas giant made of Hydrogen (88%) and Helium (11%). But the rings of Saturn are far more pronounced than those of Jupiter and Saturn has many more moons - at least 18 and possibly as many as 32! The largest moon of Saturn is Titan, larger than Mercury. Saturn will be the subject of one of the last NASA mega-budget projects, the Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997 and scheduled to arrive in the vicinity of Saturn in 2004. Saturn is 9.5AU from the Sun. [TB] {SL}