See the Photos That Taught Us About Saturn’s Rings

As more pictures came in, Saturn’s many-splendored rings began looking more and more like grooves in a celestial gold record. Even the Cassini division, a dark area first noticed three centuries ago and once thought to be the only gap in an otherwise solid surface, suddenly showed rings within it. At least two other rings were spotted slightly off center, like wobbly wheels on an old car, a curious and as yet inexplicable quirk. To complicate matters, near the outer edge of Saturn’s phonograph disc, the F-ring shows sinewy strands of material that look as if they had been twisted into braiding. Equally perplexing, spokes seem to form in some regions of the rings as the material whirls out from the planet’s shadow. Such aggregations of particles–apparently very tiny ones, judging from the way they reflect sunlight–should be quickly ripped apart, like a spoonful of sugar being stirred in a-cup of coffee. Yet somehow the spokes survive for hours at a time, almost as if they were intentionally setting out to destroy scientific theories about the rings. Says University of Arizona Astronomer Bradford Smith, chief of Voyager’s photo-interpretation team: “Those spokes are giving us nightmares!”