How Did The Observation Of Saturn Occur?

How Did The Discovery Of Saturn Come About?

Who discovered Saturn? Was this planet known to the ancients or is it modern science that brought it to our attention? To be honest, in the old times people were better informed on the movement of the stars than we are today, and the presence of Saturn must have been noticed even with primitive telescopes. Most often, Galileo is recognized as the scientist who discovered Saturn in 1610, as in his descriptions he even gave an explanation for the rings. What he saw resembled some little ears on each side of the planet, and he assumed they were globes. Yet, after a while, the white rings were identified and have hold their position as the most spectacular solar system formation ever since.

The globe explanation made by Galileo started from a confusion he didn't know how to explain. He was the astronomer who discovered Saturn, but the thing is that he considered to have seen three planets instead of one. The clarification of the rings' presence was provided in 1655 when Christiaan Huygens made the discovery that what Galileo called globes were actually rings, but nobody could tell what they were made of until some twenty years later Domenico Cassini had a revelation. He was the one to launch the theory that Saturn's rings were broken or discontinuous, consisting of small individual parts.

Presently we know that the rings are made of ice, rocks and other interplanetary matter, which only proves that the early theories were right. Who discovered Saturn then? A fair conclusion is that this part of our solar system gradually revealed itself to our eyes, but the discovery is not by far complete. Every year seems to bring something new for us to explore: and even if more than forty satellites have been discovered around Saturn, more remain hidden to our eyes for now. Thus the question is not about who discovered Saturn, but what surprises are there in store for us?

Galileo, as the person who discovered Saturn, deserves all our respect and consideration, but he is not the only one. The spacecraft which sent the first pictures from Saturn was called Cassini after the astronomer who revealed and analyzed the structure of the rings around this planet. Yet, thousands of people unknown to the public are presently involved in space programs; maybe their names are not written in history, but their effort is just as great and relevant. With every space conquest, there is one other step in the direction of learning more about the universe.