What is the Closest Planet to Saturn?

What is the closest planet to Saturn? That depends on where Saturn is in its orbit, and the position of the other planets.

But for the majority of its orbit, the closest planet to Saturn is Jupiter. When the two planets are lined up perfectly, so that it goes: Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, the two planets are separated by only 655 million km.

Of course, when the planets are on opposite sides of the Sun (Jupiter - Sun - Saturn), they're separated by 2.21 billion km, and all of the inner planets are closer to Saturn than Jupiter.

In fact, Uranus sometimes gets closer to Saturn than Jupiter. At their closest, Uranus and Saturn can be 1.43 billion km apart.

In case you were wondering, the closest planet to Jupiter is Mars, and the

closest planet to Mars

is Earth.

Here's

Hubblesite's News Releases about Saturn

, 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

.