Saturn Without Rings?

Of all the planets in the solar system, Saturn is the most dramatic. With its beautiful, extensive ring system, it always stands out when looking at our planetary neighbors.

But did you know that when Galileo first looked at it, over 400 years ago, with his telescope he thought it was actually a planet with two other objects on each side? His first drawing (in 1610) was like this picture.

Two years later, in 1612, he reported that those two bodies on either side had disappeared! Then, in 1616, he reported that he’d seen Saturn look different yet again (like below).

Today, we know that Saturn is a gas giant, the second largest planet in the solar system, and it is surrounded by a huge and complex ring system. The planet is about 73,000 miles across (without its rings!) and it is 886 million miles away from the Sun. The rings are 175,000 miles across but they’re only about 30 feet thick! They’re not solid. Instead, they’re made of millions of pieces of ice and rock.

Disappearing Act

But why did Galileo say he saw those objects (which were the blurred rings) disappear? Well, there’s something else about Saturn. Like the Earth, Saturn has a tilt. The Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees and this gives us seasons. Saturn is tilted 26.73 degrees, just a little bit more; so it also has seasons. That means that sometimes Saturn is tilted towards us and sometimes, it is tilted away from us.

Every so often, Saturn’s tilt is just right and those extremely thin rings are edge on. Because they’re so thin, they seem to disappear! Next year, in March 2025, the rings will be edge on to us here on Earth and they will appear to disappear for a period of time. Then, they’ll be back again and we’ll be able to see them. The last time this happened was in 2009.

I’m really excited to see Saturn looking like it has no rings, but I’ll be also excited to see the rings come back again!