Easy Astronomy Blog

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. In fact, Galileo is widely known as the scientist who discovered Saturn in 1610, since in his descriptions he even wrote a theory about the rings. According to his words, there were some little ears on each side of the planet, and he thought they were globes. Yet, later on, the white rings were identified and have remained the most spectacular solar system formation ever since.

The globe explanation given by Galileo started from a confusion he didn’t know how to explain. He was the astronomer who discovered Saturn, but at the same time he thought there were three planets, not one. The clarification of the rings’ presence was provided in 1655 when Christiaan Huygens realized that what Galileo referred to as globes were actually rings, but their structure became apparent twenty years later with the discovery made by Giovanni Domenico Cassini. He was the one to initiate the theory that Saturn’s rings were broken or discontinuous, consisting of fragments of different sizes.

Presently we know that the rings consist of ice, rocks and other interplanetary debris, which only contributes to underlying the truth of the early theories. Who discovered Saturn then? In conclusion, we have to admit that the discovery of the solar system has been in progress since we’ve started looking at the stars, and we are far from getting to the bottom. Every year seems to get something new for us to discover: 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 stock 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 captured the the close image of Saturn for the first time was called Cassini after the astronomer who understood and theorized the pattern 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 known to history, but their contribution is just as great and important. With every step we take towards knowing our universe, we claim one more Victory in the exploration of the unknown.