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1.) Describe Saturn
2.) It takes Saturn how long to complete one rotation

2007-03-09 12:09:00 · 3 answers · asked by evie™ 1 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

3 answers

Saturn is a great example of a 'gas giant'. It's made up of several different gasses swirling together (mostly hydrogen and helium), and as far as we know it has no solid surface the way earth and mars do. Different parts of Saturn rotate at different speeds, so an exact number is hard to pin down, learn more about saturn here ==>

http://www.nineplanets.org/saturn.html

2007-03-09 12:17:38 · answer #1 · answered by eggman 7 · 0 0

In Roman mythology, Saturn is the god of agriculture. The associated Greek god, Cronus, was the son of Uranus and Gaia and the father of Zeus (Jupiter). Saturn is the root of the English word "Saturday.
Saturn has been known since prehistoric times. Galileo was the first to observe it with a telescope in 1610; he noted its odd appearance but was confused by it. Early observations of Saturn were complicated by the fact that the Earth passes through the plane of Saturn's rings every few years as Saturn moves in its orbit. A low resolution image of Saturn therefore changes drastically. It was not until 1659 that Christiaan Huygens correctly inferred the geometry of the rings. Saturn's rings remained unique in the known solar system until 1977 when very faint rings were discovered around Uranus (and shortly thereafter around Jupiter and Neptune).

Saturn is visibly flattened (oblate) when viewed through a small telescope; its equatorial and polar diameters vary by almost 10% (120,536 km vs. 108,728 km). This is the result of its rapid rotation and fluid state. The other gas planets are also oblate, but not so much so.
Saturn is the least dense of the planets; its specific gravity (0.7) is less than that of water.
Like Jupiter, Saturn is about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium with traces of water, methane, ammonia and "rock", similar to the composition of the primordial Solar Nebula from which the solar system was formed.
Saturn's interior is similar to Jupiter's consisting of a rocky core, a liquid metallic hydrogen layer and a molecular hydrogen layer. Traces of various ices are also present.
Saturn's interior is hot (12000 K at the core) and Saturn radiates more energy into space than it receives from the Sun. Most of the extra energy is generated by the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism as in Jupiter. But this may not be sufficient to explain Saturn's luminosity; some additional mechanism may be at work, perhaps the "raining out" of helium deep in Saturn's interior.

How long does it take for Saturn to make 1 complete rotation?

According to a new study, it's 10 hours, 47 minutes and 6 seconds—give or take 40 seconds.

2007-03-09 20:31:22 · answer #2 · answered by ☆ Sarah ☆ 4 · 1 0

Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun, a gas giant, and surrounded by brilliant rings, thought to be made of rocky/icey dust. It's period of rotation is about 10 1/4 hours.

2007-03-09 20:16:53 · answer #3 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 0 0

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