In Jupiter's case, four of these moons are large and bright while the rest are small and faint. Like Jupiter, Saturn is accompanied by a retinue of more than 60 moons. To see that the rings are multiple requires at least 150 power, good optics, and steady seeing. In binoculars, it’s clear that Saturn is egg-shaped rather than circular, but the true nature of its rings isn’t apparent until seen in a telescope with at least 25 power magnification. local time as the planet reaches opposition, the point in its orbit opposite the sun, to observers in mid-northern latitudes. This sky map shows the southern location of Saturn on Apat 12 a.m. It is from such occultations that we learned the particulate nature of Saturn's rings. On rare occasions, Saturn passes in front of a distant star, and that star continues to shine undiminished by its light's passage through the rings. The outer two are bright, cleanly separated by a dark gap named Cassini's Division after its discoverer, Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625–1712) the innermost ring is ghostly faint, known as the crepe ring. Three concentric rings may be visible through the telescope. Through a good telescope, the rings are seen to have a complex structure. įrom a distance they look substantial and solid, yet in reality they are gossamer thin: thousands of kilometers wide, yet only a few kilometers thick. They are made up of many thousands of small pieces of rock and ice, with enough space in between for starlight to shine through. Saturn's rings are totally in your face, as bright as the planet itself. Like Jupiter, Saturn has alternating bands of lighter and darker hue, but mostly these are bland and featureless compared to the constant storms on Jupiter.īut Saturn's greatest glory is its rings.Īll the outer planets have rings, but with the exception of Saturn, they are only visible in long exposure photographs made from space. As gas giants go, Saturn is smaller and less active than Jupiter, but larger and more active than distant Uranus and Neptune.
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