--- title: Saturn and its rings — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Saturn and its rings», a lesson of the space course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Saturn is a giant ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, about nine times wider than the Earth, and so light for its size that it would float in an i --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Space](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/) / Saturn and its rings # Saturn and its rings Lesson 12 of the space course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/0/) — Saturn is a giant ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, about nine times wider than the Earth, and so light for its size that it would float in an impossibly huge bath. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/1/) — Its famous rings are not solid plates but countless chunks of water ice, from tiny grains to pieces as big as a house, each going round Saturn like a tiny moon. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/2/) — Picture a sheet of paper as wide as a football pitch: Saturn's rings are even flatter than that, about 280,000 kilometres across but usually only about 10 metres thick. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/3/) — That is why, when the rings turn edge-on to us every 13 to 16 years, they almost vanish, as they did in March 2025, like a sheet of paper seen from the side. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/4/) — The rings have gaps swept clear by the pull of Saturn's moons, and they slowly lose ice that rains into the planet, so scientists still argue about how old they are. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/5/) — Saturn is the second largest planet, about nine times wider than the Earth. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/6/) — Like Jupiter, Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/7/) — Saturn is the least dense planet, less dense than water, so in an impossibly huge bath it would float. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/8/) — Saturn's rings are made of countless chunks of water ice, from tiny grains to pieces as big as a house, and the ice makes them shine brightly, as fresh snow does; dark rock would look much dimmer. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/9/) — Saturn's main rings stretch about 280,000 kilometres across but are usually only about 10 metres thick. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/10/) — The rings have gaps, the biggest called the Cassini Division, cleared by the gravity of Saturn's moons. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/11/) — Every 13 to 16 years Saturn's rings line up edge-on to the Earth and almost disappear from view, which last happened in March 2025. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/12/) — Saturn's rings are slowly losing material that falls into the planet. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/13/) — Scientists still argue about whether Saturn's rings are young or as old as Saturn itself. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/14/) — Saturn's north pole has a six-sided jet stream called the hexagon, each side wider than the Earth. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/15/) — Saturn takes about 29.5 Earth years to orbit the Sun, and its winds reach about 1,800 kilometres per hour, many times faster than the strongest hurricanes on Earth, which reach about 300. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/16/) — The Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017 and finished by diving into Saturn on purpose. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/12-saturn-and-its-rings/17/) — All four giant planets have rings, but Saturn's are by far the biggest and brightest. - ← previous: [Jupiter's moons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/11-jupiters-moons/) - next →: [Saturn's moons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/13-saturns-moons/) - ↑ back to [Space](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/)