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on Twitter Astronomers have noticed a change on Saturn. The
planet’s rings are getting thinner and thinner and the detailsÂ
in the dark bandsÂ are getting harder to observe. What’s more,
at this rate, Saturn’s rings will have completely vanished by
Sept. 4, 2009! But don’t pack up your telescopes quite yet,
there’s no reason to be alarmed. This phenomenon occurs every 14
to 15 years and the explanation is down to an astronomical
optical illusion called “ring plane crossing”… In 1612, Galileo
noticed something was awry with the beautiful gas giant. The
distinctive rings of Saturn were shrinking until he was unable
to see them any more. The situation was so strange that Galileo
even stopped observing the planet (most likely through
frustration!). He had discovered the rings two years earlier and
was instantly entranced by them. He once wrote to his Medici
patrons on the discovery in 1610: “I found another very strange
wonder, which I should like t