Saturn's rings aren't as peaceful as they look Saturn's rings
aren't as neat and tidy as they appear, new observations from
NASA's Cassini spacecraft show. Chunks of material are
constantly crashing into one another, creating trails of debris
in their wakes, and small moons pull the ring material out of
shape. During equinox, when sunlight hits the rings exactly
edge-on, Cassini observed rings that are normally flat - just
tens of meters thick - being flipped up as high as the Rocky
Mountains. Cassini has also confirmed that the rings are
composed mostly of water ice, with a mysterious reddish
contaminant that could be rust or - more excitingly - small
organic molecules similar to those found in red vegetables on
Earth. "It has been amazing to see the rings come to life before
our very eyes, changing even as we watch, being colorful and
taking on a tangible, 3D nature," Jeff Cuzzi, Cassini's
interdisciplinary scientist for rings and dust said. Cassini has
also shown that the small moon Enceladus, not the sun