Saturn’s Rings Are Thicker Than We Thought

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NThe ASA’s Cassini space probe orbited Saturn for 13 years, when, upon completion of its mission, it entered a controlled descent, burning up in the ringed planet’s atmosphere. However, before its abrupt disappearance, Cassini collected 1,690 samples of cosmic debris, measuring their chemical composition with its onboard cosmic dust analyzer. Researchers are still studying the data and a new study published in The Journal of Planetary Science highlights Saturn’s most famous feature: its majestic rings.

Seen from the side, Saturn’s rings appear very thin compared to their immense size, a bit like a wide-bore compact disc (remember those?). But this most recent study indicates that they are a little thicker than previously thought.

Read more: “When the Earth had rings”

In the cosmic dust samples collected by Cassini, scientists discovered particles with the same chemical composition as the rings (mostly magnesium and calcium), but located up to three Saturnian radii (112,000 miles) above and below the plane of the rings. In other words, particles from Saturn’s rings float in a wide band around the planet, invisible to the telescope.

How did they get there? One theory is that they were attracted by Saturn’s gravity, a scenario that researchers found unlikely because they did not match the chemical composition of dust found further out in the Saturnian system. Instead, scientists believe they were propelled out of the rings themselves by micrometeoroid strikes. Micrometeoroids are quite common in space, and a series of simulations performed by the researchers confirmed this scenario as the most likely reason for the particle dispersion pattern.

As scientists continue to study Cassini data, we will learn more about Saturn’s rings, and it’s not a moment too soon. Other data collected by the latest space probe indicates that the rings could be gone in as little as 300 million years.

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Main image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

• Jake Currie

  Published on December 23, 2025

  Jake Currie is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York.