MNN - Mother Nature Network

Saturn is the hipster of our solar system. The second largest planet, its flashy rings make it the cool cousin to the lumbering gas giant Jupiter or sizzling Venus. Seen by the naked eye from Earth, its rings were discovered in 1610 by Galileo. Then in 1675, Italian-born French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini noted that the rings were separate from each other. His namesake orbiter, Cassini, was launched in 1997 by NASA to reveal the ringed giant in all its glory — as we have never seen it before.