How did Saturn get its shape?

How did Saturn get its shape?

Saturn took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this gas giant. Like Jupiter, Saturn is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, the same two main components that make up the Sun.

What would happen to Saturn if it were placed in water?

The hydrogen in the atmosphere of Saturn pushes up – but not very much, it’s just not dense enough. That means this core will “fall” towards the surface of the water planet. In the end, you would have a giant rocky core at the bottom of the water planet’s ocean.

Is Saturn’s rotation fast?

A planet’s day is the time it takes the planet to rotate or spin once on its axis. Saturn rotates faster than Earth so a day on Saturn is shorter than a day on Earth. A day on Saturn is 10.656 hours long while a day on Earth is 23.934 hours long.

Why do Jupiter and Saturn spin so fast?

When Jupiter formed, it accreted its atmosphere (over 95% of the planet’s total mass!) from the hydrogen and helium gas in the protoplanetary disk surrounding our Sun. As Jupiter ate up this gas mass, it must have begun to spin faster as it also ate up the gas’s angular momentum.

Does it rain diamonds on Saturn?

New research by scientists apparently shows that it rains diamonds on Jupiter and Saturn. According to the research lightning storms on the planets turn methane into soot which hardens into chunks of graphite and then diamonds as it falls.

Is Saturn a God?

Saturn, Latin Saturnus, in Roman religion, the god of sowing or seed. The Romans equated him with the Greek agricultural deity Cronus. Exiled from Olympus by Zeus, he ruled Latium in a happy and innocent golden age, where he taught his people agriculture and other peaceful arts. In myth he was the father of Picus.

Can you walk on Saturn?

If you tried to walk on the surface of Saturn, you would fall into the planet, suffering higher temperatures and pressures until you were crushed inside the planet. Of course you can’t stand on the surface of Saturn, but if you could, you would experience about 91% of Earth’s gravity.

Does Saturn support life?

Saturn cannot support life as we know it, but some of Saturn’s moons have conditions that might support life.

Is Saturn hot or cold?

Like the other gas giants, Saturn’s surface to atmosphere interface is rather nebulous, and likely has a small, rocky core surrounded by a liquid and very thick atmosphere. Saturn is considerably colder than Jupiter being further from the Sun, with an average temperature of about -285 degrees F.

At what speed does Saturn rotate?

21,637 miles per hour
Saturn revolves or orbits around the Sun once every 29.4 Earth years, or once every 10,755.7 Earth days. Saturn travels at an average speed of 21,637 miles per hour or 34,821 kilometers per hour in its orbit around the Sun.

What planet rotates the fastest?

Jupiter
Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our Solar System rotating on average once in just under 10 hours. That is very fast especially considering how large Jupiter is. This means that Jupiter has the shortest days of all the planets in the Solar System.

Which is the slowest spinning planet?

Slowest rotators

#	Minor planet designation	Rotation period (hours)
1.	(162058) 1997 AE12	1880
2.	846 Lipperta	1641
3.	2440 Educatio	1561
4.	2056 Nancy	1343

Why are Saturn and Jupiter spinning so fast?

Saturn and Jupiter are really big and spinning really fast but gravity still manages to hold them together. That’s why they bulge in the middle. We call the extra width the equatorial bulge.

Why do things move faster on the outer edge of a planet?

When something spins, like a planet as it rotates, things on the outer edge have to move faster than things on the inside to keep up. This is true for anything that spins, like a wheel, a DVD, or a fan. Things along the edge have to travel the farthest and fastest.

How long does it take Saturn to spin around the Sun?

One day on Saturn takes only 10.7 hours (the time it takes for Saturn to rotate or spin around once), and Saturn makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Saturnian time) in about 29.4 Earth years (10,756 Earth days). Its axis is tilted by 26.73 degrees with respect to its orbit around the Sun, which is similar to Earth’s 23.5-degree tilt.

Why does the shape of a planet make it round?

A planet’s gravity pulls equally from all sides. Gravity pulls from the center to the edges like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. This makes the overall shape of a planet a sphere, which is a three-dimensional circle. Big, small, but all round