Betty Meanlsy, age 12, of Newport News, for her question:
Is it true hat Saturn is made of gases?
Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second in size. It is the only plan©t with a halo a system of dazzling rings above its equator. The bulky planet is lighter than water and our moon ins 100 times heavier than its tremendous halo. So Saturn must be made of light materials and on our earth the lightest materials are gases.
The volume of Saturn is big enough to swallow our world 736 tames. But the bulky planet weighs only 95 tuns s more than the earth. Density is the amount of matter packed into a certain specs and the earth is five and a half times more dense than water. Saturn is 0.7 times the density of water. So most of Saturn t s bulk must be made from lighter than water materials.
On our world, ice and a few solids are lighter than water and so are the gases. Ice suggests temperature and this is an important factor when we try to figure the substances of Saturn. The big planet is almost ten tames farther from the sun than we are end its temperature is around minus 150 centigrade degrees.
In these frigid conditions, many of our gases would became solid or semi solid ices. The surface and the atmosphere of Saturn contain high percentages of methane and ammonia gases. In a frozen or semi frozen state, these gases would be lighter than water. The atmosphere is, of course, gaseous. The telescope shows it to be delicately tinted with pastel colors and banded with dark circles which parallel the planetts equator. Saturn wears darkish green polar caps and its bright equator is sometimes salmon pink.
The surface of the big planet is thought to be a soupy mixture of semi frozen gases.
It is not a solid surface, for the planet rotates a little faster at the equator than at the poles, The semi solid outer layer may reach down a third of the way to the planet’s center. Far below, it may rest on a frozen layer of solid ices.
The heaviest materials, we are told, would naturally fall or gravitate to the center of the planet and the core of Saturn may be a smallish wad of rocky solids. The bulk of Saturn's big globe is most likely made from frozen and semi frozen gases which would be lighter than water. The dazzling halo of rings is most likely made from fragments of ice and dust,
Giant Jupiter is big enough to swallow Saturn and still have room for dessert. Saturn is big enough to swallow all the other planets six times over. But the two giants of the solar family are both light weights. The density of Jupiter is 1.34, which makes it a little heavier than an equal amount of water. Astronomers think that the two big planets are made mostly from ammonia, methane and other gases in frozen and semi frozen states. The following are recent Saturn statistics.
Saturn Statistics
Planetary Symbol: Name in Roman/Greek Mythology: Saturn/Cronus
Diameter: 119,871 km (74,500 miles)
Rotation Period about Axis: 10.67 hrs
Mass: 586.5x10^24 kilograms (95 x Earth's) Revolution Period about the Sun: 29.5 years
Density: 687 kg/m^3 Tilt of Axis: 26o 42"
Minimum Distance from Sun: 1.35 billion km (840 million miles)
Surface Gravity: 8.96 m/s^2 (0.92 x Earth's)
Maximum Distance from Sun: 1.5 billion km
(938 million miles) Temperature at Cloud Tops: -170o C (-274o F)
Orbital Semi-major Axis: 9.53 AU (Earth=1 AU) Average Cloud Top Temperature (K): 103K
Minimum Distance from Earth: 1.2 billion km (746 million miles)
Satellites/Rings: 60 known moons, many rings