How Did The Identification Of Saturn Occur?

Finding Saturn - How Did It 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. In fact, Galileo is recognized 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 either side of the planet, and he presumed they were globes. Yet, after a while, 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 understand. 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 called 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 not solid or unitary but, consisting of fragments of different sizes.

Presently we are aware that the rings are made of ice, rocks and other interplanetary remains, which only proves that the early theories were right. 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 bring something new for us to explore: thus, more than forty of Saturn's moons have become known, some of them with potential conditions to sustain life. Thus the question is not about who discovered Saturn, but what is there more to discover?

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 scientist who understood and theorized the structure of the rings around this planet. Yet, there are many other people who are currently taking part to space exploration projects; maybe their names are not known to history, but their contribution is just as great and relevant. With every step we take towards knowing our universe, we claim one more victory in the exploration of the unknown.