Rings of Saturn

The rings of Saturn

The rings of Saturn are the planetary rings around the planet Saturn, which can be seen with a small telescope. They consist of many small particles, ranging in size from microscopic to the size of a bus (or bigger) that form clumps that move around Saturn. The particles in the rings are made almost entirely of water ice, with just a small amount of dust and other chemicals. There are some gaps in the rings. The moon Pan causes the gap called the "Encke gap" in Saturn's A ring. The Cassini Division, discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, is a gap between the A ring and the B ring. It is a product of orbital resonance.

Rings Of Saturn Media

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  The full set of rings, imaged as Saturn eclipsed the Sun from the vantage of the Cassini orbiter, 1.2 million km (¾ million miles) distant, on 19 July 2013 (brightness is exaggerated). Earth appears as a dot at 4 o'clock, between the G and E rings.

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  Voyager 2 view of Saturn casting a shadow across its rings. Four satellites, two of their shadows, and ring spokes are visible.

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  Detail of Galileo's drawing of Saturn in a letter to Belisario Vinta (1610)

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  Huygens' ring theory in Systema Saturnium (1659)

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  Simulated appearance of Saturn as seen from Earth over the course of one Saturn year

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  Simulated image using color to present radio-occultation-derived particle size data. The attenuation of 0.94-, 3.6-, and 13-cm signals sent by Cassini through the rings to Earth shows abundance of particles of sizes similar to or larger than those wavelengths. Purple (B, inner A Ring) means few particles are

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  The dark Cassini Division separates the wide inner B Ring and outer A ring in this image from the HST's ACS (March 22, 2004). The less prominent C Ring is just inside the B Ring.

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  Cassini mosaic of Saturn's rings on August 12, 2009, a day after equinox. With the rings pointed at the Sun, illumination is by light reflected off Saturn, except on thicker or out-of-plane sections, like the F Ring.

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  Cassini space probe view of the unilluminated side of Saturn's rings (May 9, 2007).

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  A 2007 artist impression of the aggregates of icy particles that form the 'solid' portions of Saturn's rings. These elongated clumps are continually forming and dispersing. The largest particles are a few meters across.

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