The Cassini spacecraft flying close to Saturn has revealed that Saturn's rings are not flat smooth discs as believed by most, but a turbulent collection of orbiting particles.

Jeffrey Cuzzi of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, leader of the Cassini-Huygens mission, said, "Gazillions of icy particles are constantly colliding with each other up there as they orbit the planet ... moving as waves under the influence of moonlets we've discovered orbiting inside gaps between the rings".

Owing to the Cassini- Huygens mission, the tumultuous nature of the rings is being described in the journal Science. A six year close study of the mysterious planet by the mission has led scientists to derive some definite conclusions. Cuzzi opines that the mission enabled scientists to generate a tangible 3D description of the rings.

Cassini has greatly enlightened scientists about the color and composition of the rings. Though scientists had conjectured for years that the rings were comprised of 90% water particles, it was only after Cassini that this information was substantiated.

Scientists have said that Saturn's rings have shown striking inconsistency. While sometimes these variances spread over decades, at times they span over a period of just weeks.