PlanetSolar system
Saturn
A pale-gold giant with a broad ring system and a growing family of small, distant worlds.
- Planet type
- Gas giant
- Mean radius
- 58,232 km
- Distance from the Sun
- 1.43 billion km · 9.5 AU
- Day length
- 10 h 33 min
- Orbital period
- 29.4 years
- Cloud-top temperature
- About −139 °C
- Confirmed moons
- 293 · Aug 2026
- Atmosphere
- Hydrogen and helium
The ringed planet
Cassini’s natural-colour portrait above shows the rings and a selection of the planet’s many moons. Search and sort the moon table below.
Saturn’s moons
24 featured · 293 confirmed| Moon | Diameter | Distance | Orbit |
|---|
No moons match that search.
Distances are mean orbital semimajor axes from Saturn’s center; periods are sidereal. Many small provisional moons have no measured diameter. JPL orbital data ↗ · NASA moon catalog ↗
Portrait: NASA Cassini “Saturn in Color”
Recent publications
| Year | Paper | Journal | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | The Ringed World: Saturn from Cassini to the James Webb Space Telescope | Nature Communications | DOI |
| 2026 | Investigating tidal stripping of a pre-existing moon as the origin of Saturn’s young icy rings | ApJ Letters | DOI |
| 2023 | Saturn’s Atmosphere in Northern Summer Revealed by JWST/MIRI | JGR Planets | DOI |
| 2023 | JWST molecular mapping and characterization of Enceladus’ water plume feeding its torus | Nature Astronomy | DOI |
| 2024 | Variations in plume activity reveal the dynamics of water-filled faults on Enceladus | Nature Communications | DOI |
Compiled 20 October 2026. Links resolve to the publisher DOI record.
Worth knowing
Saturn is less dense than water, so it would float.
Its rings are mostly water ice, yet often only tens of metres thick.
Titan has lakes of liquid methane and ethane.
Recommended pop-science media
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Saturn 101 National Geographic
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Saturn: The Solar System’s Greatest Jewel BBC Earth Science
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