Billions of orbiting snowballs
What Are Saturn's Rings Made Of?
The rings are countless chunks of ice, each on its own orbit, that only look solid from far away.
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Step 1 of 5
From a distance they look like solid hoops.
Through a small telescope the rings appear to be smooth flat bands, which is exactly what astronomers assumed for a very long time.
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Step 2 of 5
They are really countless chunks of ice.
Most pieces are between a grain of sand and a house in size, and each one is a tiny moon following its own path around Saturn.
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Step 3 of 5
Each chunk keeps its own orbit.
Nothing holds the ring together. Every piece is independently falling around Saturn, and the inner ones travel faster than the outer ones.
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Step 4 of 5
They are astonishingly thin.
The rings stretch far wider than Earth yet are often only about ten metres thick, which is why they vanish when seen exactly edge-on.
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Step 5 of 5
They may be the wreckage of a moon.
Anything drifting too close to Saturn is pulled apart by the difference in gravity across it, and the pieces spread into a ring.
Saturn's main rings span about 280,000 kilometres but are typically only around 10 metres thick — proportionally thinner than paper.
The short version
Saturn's rings are billions of separate ice chunks each on its own orbit, spread into a sheet far thinner than their width suggests.
Try it yourself
Look at Saturn through any small telescope. The rings resolve into a gap and bands rather than one solid plate.
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