“How many rings does Saturn have?”

Saturn’s rings glow in the sunlight (Image: NASA)

That depends.

How good is your telescope?

“Mommyo!”

No really.

According to this article on Universe Today, how many rings you can see around Saturn depends on the quality of your telescope.

Folks looking through a consumer-grade telescope would probably see three rings. Scientists equipped with more powerful scopes can make out 8 distinct rings. But to spacecraft like NASA’s Cassini, which is currently orbiting Saturn and therefore can see the rings (and the divisions between them) in much greater detail, Saturn appears to have 30 rings (and counting).

For the record, when we looked at Saturn through Daddyo’s telescope, we saw one very fat ring. It was still awesome.

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