The Ring discoverer

Many years later, in 1659, a Dutch astronomer named Christiaan Huygens solved the mystery of Saturn's "arms." Because of improved telescope optics, he correctly deduced that the "arms" were actually a ring system. Huygens also discovered Saturn's moon, Titan, and for this reason, the probe exploring Titan is named after him.

Christiaan Huygens

Robert Hooke was another early observer of the rings of Saturn, and noted the casting of shadows on the rings.

Robert Hooke

    Robert Hooke drawing of Saturn shadow(rings)

In 1675, Giovanni Domenico Cassini determined that Saturn's ring was composed of multiple smaller rings with gaps between them; the largest of these gaps was later named the Cassini Division. This division is a 4,800 km-wide region between the A ring and B ring.

Giovanni Domenico Cassini

        Giovanni Domenico Cassini drawing of Saturn ring

In 1787, Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that the rings were composed of a large number of solid ringlets

Pierre-Simon Laplace

In 1859, James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated that the rings could not be solid or they would become unstable and break apart. He proposed that the rings must be composed of numerous small particles, all independently orbiting Saturn.

Sodia Kovalevskava found that Saturn's rings cannot be liquid ring-shaped bodies.

Maxwell's theory was proven to be valid in 1895 through spectroscopic studies of the rings carried out by James Keeler  of Allegheny Observatory and Aristarkh Belopolsky of Pulkovo Observatory.