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The ring system

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The Cassini-Huygens Visit to Saturn

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Abstract

For four centuries, astronomers have gazed at Saturn’s rings in awe. Galileo Galilei first examined the Saturn system with a telescope in 1610, but his instrument was far too crude and weak to resolve the two peculiar protuberances that he saw on either side of the planet, and he guessed they must be two large moons. Two years later, he was astonished to see that they had apparently disappeared. After another two years, the protuberances were back again and he concluded that they were “arms” of some sort.2

“It has been amazing to see the rings come to life before our very eyes, changing even as we watch, being colorful and taking on a tangible, 3-D nature. The rings were still a nearly unstructured object in even the best telescopes when I was a grad student, but Cassini has brought us an intimate familiarity with them.” – Jeff Cuzzi, Cassini Interdisciplinary Scientist for Rings and Dust 1

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    Michael Meltzer

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Meltzer, M. (2015). The ring system. In: The Cassini-Huygens Visit to Saturn. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07608-9_12

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