Cosmic Scale
Saturn
Gas giant · 1.4 billion km from the Sun
How big is Saturn?
Saturn is about 116,500 km across.
See Saturn in 3D, at true scale
Saturn's rings are only tens of metres thick but stretch hundreds of thousands of kilometres — countless chunks of nearly pure water ice, from grains to house-sized boulders, each on its own orbit. The planet itself is a gas giant so light it would float in water.
At a glance
| Diameter | 116,500 km |
|---|---|
| Mass | 5.68 × 10²⁶ kg |
| Diameter compared with Earth | 9.14 × Earth |
| Year | 29.4 years |
| Day | 10 hours 33 minutes |
| Density | 0.69 g/cm³ — less than water |
| Moons | 274 confirmed |
Good to know
- The rings are young by cosmic standards, perhaps only 100 million years old, and are slowly raining down onto the planet.
- A hexagonal jet stream, 30,000 km across, circles its north pole — nobody expected a six-sided storm.
- Cassini orbited Saturn for 13 years and ended by diving into the planet in 2017 to avoid contaminating its moons.