What is saturn's atmosphere made of?

The part of Saturn that was can see is the visible cloud deck. The clouds are made of ammonia, and sit about 100 km below the top of Saturn’s troposphere (the tropopause), where temperatures dip down to -250 degrees C. Below this upper cloud deck is a lower cloud deck made of ammonium hydrosulphide clouds, located about 170 km below. read more

Saturn is known as a gas giant for a reason. The planet lacks a solid surface, so the transition between the murky atmosphere and the interior is imprecise. A particularly strong jet stream churns through Saturn's northern hemisphere in this false-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. read more

Saturn's atmosphere exhibits a banded pattern similar to Jupiter's, but Saturn's bands are much fainter and are much wider near the equator. The nomenclature used to describe these bands is the same as on Jupiter. read more