Measuring ring-material detected by Cassini falling into Saturn’s equator allowed astronomers to give the rings another 100 million years to live. This story has been updated to fix a typo.

In addition, he discovered the Cassini Division in the rings of Saturn in 1675. He shares with Robert Hooke credit for the discovery of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, circa 1665.

Scientists had long known that Mimas creates the Cassini Division — like the spacecraft, named for the 17th-century Italian-French astronomer Giovanni Cassini — the broadest gap in the rings.

Changing Angles Change the Brightnesses. It turns out that the Cassini Division and the C ring are not always brighter than the B and A rings, even in the mid-infrared.

The substantial moon Mimas causes the large Cassini Division in this way. Saturn's moon Pan forges the 202-mile-wide (325 km) Encke Gap, giving it a wavy, scalloped edge.

In 1675, he noticed that Saturn’s rings were separated into two major sections: The gap is known as the Cassini Division. He also discovered the moons Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys and Dione.

Fifty such maneuvers over one Earth year would take it past the Cassini Division to the middle of the A ring, where it would orbit Saturn at a distance of 128,000 kilometers once every 13 hours ...

NASA's $3.3 billion Cassini probe completed a seven-year, 2.2-billion mile voyage Wednesday night, firing its main engine for a nerve-wracking 95 minutes to successfully brake into orbit around ...

The Cassini Division and the C ring appear bright. Color differences reflect the temperatures; the warmer part is blue, the cooler part is red. view more . Credit: NAOJ.

image: The outer reaches of the Cassini Division merge with the inner A ring (at right) in a region that is rich in structure. For context, other Cassini views of this region are available (see ...

2004-07-03 04:00:00 PDT Pasadena-- New images from Saturn and its dazzling ring system are pouring in from the Cassini spacecraft to scientists here at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and ...

Since astronomer Galileo Galilei first noticed something odd about Saturn in 1610, the planet's picturesque rings have posed many fascinating puzzles.