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Asked by phoebe123 to Chris, Josh, Rebecca, Rob, Susan on 17 Jun 2015.
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Susan Cartwright answered on 17 Jun 2015:
Mostly hydrogen and helium. What you see when you look at Saturn is a very very deep layer of cloud, mostly hydrogen and helium with smaller amounts of other gases such as methane, ammonia, nitrogen. We believe there is a small core of rock deep inside, but that is mostly theory – we have never been able to look that far down. If it is there, it probably makes up only about 10% of Saturn’s mass.
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Rebecca Dewey answered on 18 Jun 2015:
The rings around saturn are almost entirely frozen water (ice) with a bit of rock. They are very small particles that are in orbit around the planet, held there by Saturn’s gravity (like our moon orbits the earth). They have been separated into rings by the paths of the moons that also orbit Saturn, but also by the particles in the rings’ own gravitational attraction to each other, as well as static electricity and other forces like Saturn’s magnetic field (which is very strong compared to ours).
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