Submitted by barbadizzy t3_10hu1zr in askscience
I was always under the assumption that they were made of many little bits of rock/ice and depending on the density can appear brighter or thicker. Is it possible for them to have had so much debris that it melded together into a single solid disk? Just saw a close-up of Saturn's rings and now I'm questioning everything I thought I knew about rings.
polaroppositebear t1_j5astp3 wrote
No. What you are seeing is many small pieces of dust and debris which from a distance seem dense and or solid. Take clouds for example. Before we knew about the precipitation process, we thought clouds could possibly hold structures.