← All space facts · Planet
Saturn Facts for Kids
Discover 20 amazing facts about Saturn, sourced from NASA and written for kids to understand and enjoy. Want to explore Saturn in 3D? Launch the game to visit!
6th From the Sun
Saturn is the 6th planet from the Sun. It lives far out in the solar system, past Jupiter. On a clear night you can sometimes see it shining in the sky!
764 Earths Fit Inside!
Saturn is enormous! About 764 Earths could fit inside Saturn. If Saturn were a hollow ball, you could stuff it full of hundreds of copies of our entire planet!
It Would Float!
Saturn is so light and fluffy that if you found a bathtub big enough, Saturn would actually FLOAT in water! It is the only planet in our solar system that would do this. It is less dense than water!
A Giant Ball of Gas!
Saturn is a gas giant, which means it has no solid ground to stand on. It is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium - the same gases that make balloons float here on Earth!
Rings of Ice and Rock
Saturn's famous rings are made of billions of pieces of ice and rock. They range from tiny specks smaller than a grain of sand all the way up to chunks as big as a house!
Huge But Super Thin!
Saturn's rings stretch out 175,000 miles wide - that is nearly as far as from Earth to the Moon! But they are only about 30 feet thick. That is like a piece of paper compared to a football field!
Named Rings!
Saturn has many different rings, and scientists gave them letter names: D, C, B, A, F, G, and E. There is also a big gap between the B and A rings called the Cassini Division, which is almost as wide as the planet Mercury!
274 Moons!
Saturn has 274 confirmed moons - more than any other planet in the solar system! Scientists keep discovering new ones. Some are huge and some are barely bigger than a boulder!
Titan: A Giant Moon
Saturn's biggest moon is called Titan, and it is enormous - even bigger than the planet Mercury! It is the second largest moon in the entire solar system. Only Jupiter's moon Ganymede is bigger!
Titan's Liquid Lakes!
Titan has lakes, rivers, and seas on its surface - just like Earth! But instead of water, they are filled with liquid methane. It rains methane there too! Scientists think it might be a strange kind of alien world.
Titan's Thick Air
Titan has a thick atmosphere mostly made of nitrogen, just like Earth! In fact, Titan's atmosphere is even thicker than ours. It gives the moon an orange haze that makes it look like a fuzzy orange ball from space!
Super Fast Spinner!
Even though Saturn is enormous, it spins incredibly fast! One day on Saturn is less than 11 hours long. Saturn is always racing to finish its next day before we are even done with breakfast on Earth!
A Very Long Year
Saturn moves slowly around the Sun, so one Saturn year takes about 29 Earth years! If you were born the same day Saturn started a new year, you'd be almost 30 years old before it had its next birthday!
Super Fast Winds!
Saturn's winds blast at up to 1,100 miles per hour - faster than the speed of sound! Only Neptune has faster winds in our solar system. Nothing on Earth comes close to winds that powerful!
The Hexagon Storm!
At Saturn's north pole, there is a giant six-sided storm called the Hexagon. It is wider than two Earths! A perfect six-sided shape spinning in space - scientists are still figuring out why it looks like that!
The Cassini Spacecraft
NASA's Cassini spacecraft traveled to Saturn and studied it for 13 amazing years, from 2004 to 2017! It flew through Saturn's rings, discovered new moons, and sent back thousands of incredible photos before the mission ended.
Landing on Titan!
In 2005, a small probe called Huygens was dropped from the Cassini spacecraft and parachuted all the way down through Titan's thick atmosphere. It landed on Titan's surface and sent back pictures - the first ever from Titan!
Named After a God!
Saturn is named after the ancient Roman god of agriculture and farming. The Romans thought the planets were gods watching over them. Saturn was an important god who taught humans how to grow crops!
Super Massive!
Saturn is 95 times more massive than Earth! Even though it is less dense than water and would float, there is still so much of it that its gravity is powerful enough to hold onto all those moons and rings.
Where Did the Rings Come From?
Scientists think Saturn's rings might be the leftovers of a moon or comet that got too close and was torn apart by Saturn's powerful gravity. All those broken pieces spread out into the beautiful rings we see today!
Source: NASA · Last updated: