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750 Earths could fit inside a hollow Saturn.
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Saturn's gravitational pull is similar to that of Earth. For this reason
you would weigh almost the same on Saturn as you weigh on Earth.
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Saturn has no solid surface beneath its clouds. the clouds are made
of frozen ammonia crystals. Saturn's clouds blow up to 1,000 miles per
hour, and temperatures can reach 218 degrees below zero.
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Saturn has over 100,000 individual ringlets, as discovered by our Pioneer
spacecraft in 1979. The rings are made of water ice and particles, perhaps
debris of moons that came too close to Saturn or particles too close to
form moons. They may also be pieces of comets or asteroids that broke up before they reached the planet.
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The newer rings are bright, the older rings have picked up a lot of
cosmic dust and are darker.
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The rings did not form at the same time as the planet. They are no older
than 100 million years old, and they will disappear in the next 100 million
years.
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The rings are twice as wide as the planet Jupiter. Scientists think
they are only about 50 feet thick.
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It has the most moons in our solar system, a known total of 28. One
of the moons, Titan, has a thick atmosphere that contains nitrogen. Scientist
think that Titan might have water on its surface.
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Saturn also has some unusual moons. Two of its moons were once one moon,
one is shaped like a hamburger, one is only 12 miles across, one has a
crater over 1/4 its surface.
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Another strange moon of Saturn is Iapetus. One side is dark black, and
the other side is all white. We know that the white side is pure ice, but
we don't know yet what caused one side to become black.
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The Cassini spacecraft will visit this planet in 2002 and take pictures.
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Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen.
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It is the least dense of all the planets. It is less dense than water,
which means it would actually float on water if we could find an ocean
large enough!
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