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The Composition of Saturn's Interior


This is a drawing showing the composition of the interior of Saturn.

Saturn's composition is primarily that of simple molecules such as hydrogen and helium, but there is also ice of ammonia, ice of methane and water ice.

Under the cloud layers, when the pressure of the interior becomes high enough, the hydrogen of which Saturn is made changes to liquid hydrogen, which gradually changes further to liquid metallic hydrogen.

Compared to Jupiter, Saturn does not have as much metallic hydrogen, but there is more ice. Because the magnetosphere comes from the metallic layer, this means that Saturn has a smaller magnetosphere than does Jupiter.

At the far interior of Saturn is found the core, which is made of rocky and metal elements.

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Last modified April 9, 1997 by the Windows Team

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