What does the planet Saturn look like?

From Earth, the planet Saturn looks like a tannish-beige colored sphere famously girdled by rings substantial enough to be seen through a small telescope. Its apparent magnitude of between +1.47 to ?0.24 makes Saturn a fairly bright object in the night sky.

On closer inspection, the planet is a gas giant with somewhat flattened poles and a bulging equator. Its surface is made up of layers of clouds that give the planet a subtle, banded appearance. This occurs because the clouds are made of different materials and are found at different levels.

Up close, the rings of Saturn are more numerous and far more complex than can be imagined from Earth.