Saturn's Rings

If you've never had the chance to view Saturn through a telescope, please do so!  Find a telescope or a star gazing event, and if Saturn is up, make sure you get a chance to see it.  The first time I saw Saturn through a telescope, it looked like a fake image.  I had never seen rings on a planet before with my own eyes and they seemed so amazing as to appear fake.  They weren't fake, however, they were simply that awesome!

Saturn's rings are often confused as solid rotating structures.  They are not.  They are not solid like a record or DVD is solid.  They appear solid due to the sunlight striking them and reflecting back to the Earth, but in fact they are made up of tiny little dust and ice particles.  Most particles are microscopic but they can range as large as a few meters in size.  The large "boulders" in the rings are few and far between compared to the smaller particles.  Travel through the rings is not dangerous for spacecraft.  The Cassini spacecraft has traveled through the rings many times and was never in danger.  There's quite a bit of space between objects in the rings, but from a large distance, they appear solid.