Sagan Planet Walk
A magnificent ring system
· Saturn is a gas giant composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. It has the lowest density of any planet in our Solar System, with about two-thirds being water.
· Saturn's rings are made of countless individually orbiting particles that are primarily water ice; most are smaller than a house.
· Saturn's inner rings may be the flattest structures in our Solar System. Their diameter is about 30 million times longer than their two-story height.
[Photo caption reads]
Enhanced photograph of Saturn and its magnificent rings, taken by the Cassini spacecraft when the Sun was behind Saturn.
Several moons of Saturn are visible, along with Venus, Earth and its moon, and Mars.
Mysterious moons with strange oceans and seas
· Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is the only known extraterrestrial world to host rain, rivers, stable lakes and seas, where methane plays the role of water on Earth.
· Saturn's moon, Enceladus, has a liquid water ocean beneath its frozen water shell.
[Photo captions read]
Above: Bright plumes of water ice and water vapor are erupting from the volcanically-active south pole of Enceladus, a small moon of Saturn.
Left: False-color photograph of Ligeia Mare, a sea of liquid methane on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, with Cayuga Lake shown
for scale.
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[Text in blue band at left side of marker]
The mass of 95 Earths = the mass of 1 Saturn
One Saturn day = 10 hours, 39 minutes
1 Saturn year = 29.4 Earth years
Known moons: 53
The diameter of Saturn = 9.4 Earth diameters
Earth Highest [temp] 57°c · Lowest [temp] -89°c
Saturn Mean [temp] -178°c
Weight on Earth 100 [lbs]
Weight on Saturn 106 [lbs]
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In the Sun-sized window are scaled representations of Saturn and its largest moon, Titan.
This sculpture and walking tour depict our Solar System at on five-billionth (1/5,000,000,000) of its actual size.
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