"One might think that the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile."
—Emerson.
The crowning glory of Saturn, its thin flat ring, is poised above the huge body without in any way touching it. Although this ring appears as a solid piece, it is now known positively that it is made up of swarms of meteors or exceedingly minute satellites, all whirling round and round Saturn in the same plane. It may easily be seen why a brightly swirling mass of these shining moons would seem as one object at such a distance.
Through a large telescope it becomes apparent that Saturn's ring is really composed of three rings lying one inside of the other, the two outer rings, which are about 11,000 and 18,000 miles in width, being separated by a dark, narrow clean-cut space of about 2200 miles.
The third ring is a thin, faint inner ring, so transparent that the planet may be seen shining through it. It is about the same width as the outer ring, 11,000 miles, and its inner edge lies only 6000 miles above the surface of the planet. This inner ring is called the "crape ring" because it has a dusky look. It is believed to be the inner ring thinning off toward the planet. It has been suggested that the crape ring may have originated from collisions of particles in the bright ring, thus reducing their orbits, and that the rings of Saturn are slowly shrinking down upon the planet and will sometimes in the future have entirely disappeared.
TWELVE PHOTOGRAPHS OF SATURN, MADE WITH A 60-INCH REFLECTING TELESCOPE.
Photographs by the Mount Wilson Observatory.
The first individual to gain a glimpse of Saturn's rings was Galileo. To Galileo, whose telescope was not much superior to the field-glass of today, the planet appeared triple with two outer stars touching the middle star "like two servants assisting old Saturn to complete his journey." A few years later when he again turned his telescope upon Saturn, these attendant orbs had disappeared. "It is possible some demon mocked me," he exclaimed, and would look no more.
"But for these news I know not what they be,
Some one perhaps has lit on a new vein
Of stars in Heaven:"