Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest planet in our solar system. Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Saturn is not the only planet to have rings, but none are as spectacular or as complex as Saturn's.

Jan 9, 2025 · Saturn is nearly 10 times farther from the sun than Earth and takes far longer to orbit the sun – about 29 Earth years. Saturn’s axis of rotation is tilted like Earth’s, and so it too has seasons, but the longer year produces seasons that last more than seven Earth years each.

Saturn takes about 10.7 hours (no one knows precisely) to rotate on its axis once—a Saturn “day”—and 29 Earth years to orbit the sun.

Jan 9, 2025 · NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system.

Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.

In the 400 years since Galileo's discovery, the rings have become Saturn’s telltale feature and are perhaps the most recognized characteristic of any world in our solar system. Cassini spent more than a decade examining them more closely than any spacecraft has before.

Haze-enshrouded Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and the solar system’s second-largest, and an all-around exceptional place. Titan is the only known world other than Earth where any sort of liquid collects on its surface.

Jan 9, 2025 · NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected dust storms on Saturn's largest moon, making Titan the third Solar System body where such storms have been observed.

Jan 9, 2025 · During NASA's Cassini mission's final distant encounter with Saturn's giant moon Titan, the spacecraft captured the enigmatic moon's north polar landscape of lakes and seas, which are filled with liquid methane and ethane.

Jan 9, 2025 · It began the first in-depth, up-close study of Saturn and its system of rings and moons in 2004. It became the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, beginning a mission that yielded troves of new insights over more than a decade.