![]() Voyager’s now famous photograph of the rings, backlit by the Sun, showed for the first time that what appeared as the vast A, B and C rings in fact comprised millions of smaller ringlets. At the same time, estimates for the thickness of the rings went from Sir William Herschel’s 300 miles in 1789, to Audouin Dollfus’ much more precise estimate of less than two miles in 1966.Īstronomers understanding of the rings changed dramatically with the Pioneer 11 and twin Voyager missions to Saturn. Because of the 27 degrees in the tilt of Saturn’s rotation axis relative to the plane of its orbit, the rings appear to tilt toward and away from Earth with the 29-year cycle of Saturn’s revolution about the Sun, giving humanity an ever-changing view of the rings.īut what were the rings made of? Were they solid disks as some suggested? Or were they made up of smaller particles? As more structure became apparent in the rings, as more gaps were found, and as the motion of the rings about Saturn was observed, astronomers realized that the rings were not solid, and were perhaps made up of a large number of moonlets, or small moons. Peering at the planet through his telescope, it first looked to him as a planet with two very large moons, then as a lone planet, and then again through his newer telescope, in 1616, as a planet with arms or handles.įour decades later, Giovanni Cassini first suggested that Saturn was a ringed planet, and what Galileo had seen were different views of Saturn’s rings. When Galileo first observed Saturn through his telescope in 1610, he was still basking in the fame of discovering the four moons of Jupiter. I am a space scientist with a passion for teaching physics and astronomy, and Saturn’s rings have always fascinated me as they tell the story of how the eyes of humanity were opened to the wonders of our solar system and the cosmos. ![]() Have the rings, in some shape or form, existed since the beginnings of the solar system, 4.6 billion years ago, or are they a more recent addition? Had the rings even formed when the Chicxulub asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs? Whether our time-traveling astronomer would be able to observe Saturn’s rings is debatable. Not many, though, would think of taking a telescope with them, and if, having done so, observe Saturn and its rings. ![]() Some would travel 100 million years back in time, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Mimas, aka the Death Star Moon, sports a huge crater on its surface making it look exactly like a scene from "Star Wars.Many dream of what they would do had they a time machine. Iapetus is a two-toned moon with an expansive, tall, skinny mountain range making it look like a brown walnut in space. ![]() Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, which is larger than the planet Mercury, has its own atmosphere. Cassini observed every bend of the rings as well as its many fascinating moons. The best views of the ringed planet came from the Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004-2017. Saturn’s farthest-flung and faintest ring, called the Phoebe Ring, extends millions of miles from the planet. It circles Saturn backward (compared to the other rings) and follows the path of the tiny moon Phoebe. The closer the ring is to the planet, the faster it travels. These ring particles individually circle Saturn like tiny moons and each move at a different rate. The rings are not solid like a road but are composed of individual bits of ice, dust and rock. Astronomers believe the rings were the result of a collision from multiple moons scattering debris around the planet or from moons that wandered too close to Saturn and were shredded by tremendous tidal forces of the giant planet.
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