Take a Stunning 250,000 Kilometer-Long Video Tour of Saturn’s Rings
If you were ever interested in visiting Saturn but don’t want to become an astronaut, here is your opportunity.
via Syfy
The rings are made of countless chunks of very nearly pure water ice, some tiny, some several meters across. The way light passes through them changes their appearance — when it’s not the equinox, and the Sun is shining down on one side of the rings, they look different seen from the illuminated side versus “underneath”, from the unilluminated side. That’s because light reflecting off the rings (when seen from “above”, the sunlit side) is much stronger than the light that gets through. This dramatically changes the way they look, and a lot can be learned about their composition this way.
