Saturn Rings

Description

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun, orbiting at a distance of over 1.4 billion kilometres. It has a diameter of over 120,000 kilometres, nearly ten times that of Earth, and a volume of over 800 Earths. It is a gas giant, consisting mostly of hydrogen and helium. The outer surface clouds are coloured by trace chemical elements. Saturn has a large ring system, consisting of thousands of rock and ice chunks. This image, taken with a 356mm reflector and CCD camera, from Mount Olympus, Cyprus, at an altitude of 1900 metres, was obtained on 20 April 2013. (Photo by Science Photo Library)