Mass of Saturn

saturn.jpg

The mass of Saturn is 5.6846×10

26

kg. Just for a comparison, this is 95 times the mass of the Earth.

Saturn is much larger than Earth; its equator spans 9.4 times the size of our home planet. And yet, it's much less dense. In fact, Saturn has such a low density that it would actually float on water if you could find a pool large enough.

And so, even though it's much larger and more massive than Earth, if you could actually stand on the "surface of Saturn" - which you can't, there's no surface - you would only feel 91% of gravity that we feel here on Earth.

Here's an article from Universe Today explaining

just how big planets can get

, and an article about how Jupiter and the other gas giants might have

gobbled up their moons

while they were forming.

Here's

Hubblesite's News Releases about Saturn

, which has more info about the ringed planet, and

NASA's Solar System Exploration

guide.

We have recorded two episodes of Astronomy Cast just about Saturn. The first is

Episode 59: Saturn

, and the second is

Episode 61: Saturn's Moons

.

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, founding the website in March 1999. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast.