Saturn, Cassini

Using a telescope that was far superior to those available to Galileo, Huygens observed Saturn and wrote that "It [1] is surrounded by a thin, flat, ring, nowhere touching, inclined to the ecliptic." 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 in itself is a 4800 km-wide region between the A Ring and B Ring.

North is up. Imaged by Cassini in 2006. The rings can be viewed using a quite modest modern telescope or with good binoculars. They extend from 6 630 km to 120 700 km above Saturn's equator, average approximately 20 meters in thickness, and are composed of 93 percent water ice with a smattering of tholin impurities, and 7 percent amorphous carbon.

Source: Wikipedia > Saturn