-Second largest in mass

-thick active atmosphere composed of mainly hydrogen

-strong magnetic field

Saturn’s shell of liquid metallic hydrogen produces planet wide magnetic field

internal heat that convects its cloud gases

-Has storms like Jupiter

-Composed of same basic gases as Jupiter (hydrogen, helium etc.)

-highest winds of any planet

-less compressed than Jupiter’s (cant convert as much hydrogen into liquid)

-titled 27 degrees from the perpendicular to Saturn’s plane of orbit (hard for us to see them)

-Cassini division –wide gap that seperates A ring from bright B ring (closer to planet)

--faint C ring within B ring

-divide there because gravitational forces from Saturn’s moon Mimas combines with gravitational force of saturn to keep area clear of debris (effect called resonance-where Mimas pushes the matter out of the area)

Encke division gap in outer portion of A ring

--kept clear because moon Pan orbits within gap –gravitational force of moon causes rings to ripple

-rings are extremely thin

-rings are very bright (particles must be reflective then)

--thought to be made of water ice, and ice-coated rocks

-Rings slightly salmon-colored  because they contain trace amounts of organic molecules

-darker parts of rings believed to be created from electric charges on ring material interacting with planet’s magnetic field—which lifts the charged particles out of the plane in which the rings orbit spreading them out and scattering light (making them appear darker)

Encke division gap in outer portion of A ring

-oblong moons captured asteroids

-Titan is second in size for moons to Ganymede

-Only moon to have dense atmosphere

-Bigger than Mercury, less massive than Mercury, and colder than Mercury

-Can retain heavy gases (cold enough and massive enough)

-90% atmosphere composed of nitrogen (formed from breakdown of ammonia by sun’s ultraviolet radiation into hydrogen and nitrogen atoms)

-gravity too weak to retain hydrogen

-second most abundant gas is methane (provides variety of other compounds)

-Ethane the most abundant of these compounds and condenses and falls to Nitrogen as a liquid

-Lack of craters suggests surface changes

-too cold for life