How many rings are there around saturn

While the gaps between Saturn's rings are small, the mile-wide Keeler Gap is large enough to contain multiple moons , albeit very small ones. The largest ring system—the one discovered in —starts 3. Researchers are still discovering new rings as well as new insights into the features of Saturn's already-known ring systems.

In the early s, NASA's Voyager missions took the first high-resolution images of Saturn and its rings, revealing previously unknown kinks in one of the narrower rings, known as the F ring. In , NASA sent the Cassini orbiter to continue the space agency's study of the ringed planet, leading to the discovery of new rings, so faint that they remained unknown until Cassini's arrival in Before Cassini is sent to burn up in Saturn's atmosphere in September , it's taking 22 dives through the space between the planet and its rings, bringing back new, up-close revelations about the ring system before the spacecraft dives to its death.

Though it's certainly possible to see Saturn's rings without any fancy equipment, using a low-end telescope at your house, that doesn't mean you always can. It depends on the way the planet is tilted ; if you're looking at the rings edge-on, they may look like a flat line or, depending on the magnification, you might not be able to see them at all. Enceladus shows evidence of "ice volcanism": a hidden ocean spews out water and other chemicals from the geysers spotted at the moon's southern pole.

A number of these satellites, such as Prometheus and Pandora, are referred to as shepherd moons because they interact with ring material and keep the rings in their orbits. Though scientists have identified many moons, Saturn has other small moons constantly being created and destroyed. As the most massive planet in the solar system after Jupiter, the pull of Saturn's gravity has helped shape the fate of our solar system. It may have helped violently hurl Neptune and Uranus outward.

Along with Jupiter, it might also have slung a barrage of debris toward the inner planets early in the system's history. Scientists are still learning about how gas giants form, and run models on early solar system formation to understand the role that Jupiter, Saturn and other planets play in our solar system.

A study suggests that Saturn, more so than Jupiter, steers dangerous asteroids away from Earth. The first spacecraft to reach Saturn was Pioneer 11 in , flying within 13, miles 22, km of the Ringed Planet.

Images from the spacecraft allowed astronomers to discover two of the planet's outer rings, as well as the presence of a strong magnetic field. The Voyager spacecraft helped astronomers discover that the planet's rings are made up of thinner ringlets.

The Cassini spacecraft , a Saturn orbiter, was the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built. The two-story-tall probe weighed 6 tons 5. It helped identify plumes on the icy moon Enceladus, and carried the Huygens probe, which plunged through Titan's atmosphere to successfully land on its surface.

After a decade of observation, Cassini returned incredible data about the Ringed Planet and its moons, as well as a photo re-creating the original "Pale Blue Dot" image , which captures Earth from behind Saturn, in The mission concluded in September when Cassini, low on fuel, was deliberately crashed into Saturn to avoid the slight chance of the craft crashing into and contaminating a habitable moon.

While there are no future missions planned for Saturn, scientists have proposed missions to probe the icy moon Enceladus or Titan. These explorations could involve submarines or modified rovers. How old are they? How did they get there? Do they serve any purpose? None of these questions have definitive answers. Even the number of rings varies, according to how the counting is done.

The rings were first observed in by Galileo. Over the next few centuries, however, not much more was learned about those rings, until the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft conducted fly-bys of the sixth planet from the sun in the early s.

The 4,pound Cassini spacecraft —one of the largest and most complex interplanetary vehicles ever built—reached Saturn in , after a 7-year journey.

Cassini was due to end in , but its mission has been extended several times, and it is currently slated for death in Why study the rings? The prevailing wisdom has been that the rings came into being around million years ago—a true youngster compared to the 4.

But in , University of Colorado at Boulder scientists, armed with data from Cassini, posited that the rings were there at the start and are indeed, some 4 to 5 billion years old.