The Cassini mission to Saturn continues to produce amazing new data. The latest example of that involves the planet's magnificent ring system.
Astronomers have thought for centuries that the rings of Saturn were extremely thin-- maybe only a few feet thick. Indeed, when properly aligned with Earth, the rings seem to disappear completely. New images from Cassini, however, show the rings can be two miles thick in places, with "peaks" perhaps double that.
The dynamism of the system is a result of the complex gravitational interplay involving the planet itself, the mass within the ring system, and the masses of various moons. Sorting through all that to come to a complete understanding of the system will likely be the work of a few careers. Cassini gathered these images, by the way, on an extended mission. Had the mission been stopped as planned. we likely wouldn't have had this knowledge for decades, or even generations.
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