[AJames]

The Sources of "Ansae" is a follows;

The rings were first seen by Galileo in 1610, who did not know what they really were. He said all that he could see were two spherical balls near the main disk - an illusion created by the telescope's very poor quality. Later he described them as ansae, which translates to mean literally handles.

"I have observed the highest planet to be tripled-bodied. This is to say that to my very great amazement Saturn was seen to me to be not a single star, but three together, which almost touch each other."

Even more puzzling for Galileo was that they had all but vanished in 1612 only to return again in 1615. It was only until decades later in 1655 that Hugyens first realised they were true rings encircling the planet. This result appeared in his "Systema Saturnium", which was first published in 1659, saying;

"Saturn is surrounded by a thin flat ring not touching it anywhere, which is oblique to the ecliptic."

Looking at the earlier observations he soon knew that the disappearance of the rings was due to the changing aspects of Saturn with the rings being tilted to the plane of the ecliptic.

The Rings of Saturn are invisible to the naked-eye but are prominent in telescopes as small as 3cm. They are about 272 000 km across being 2.2 times the size of the main disk and appear less yellowish than the planet's main disk.

These rings are not solid disk, as the first telescopic astronomers thought.