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In “The Martian Way,” [...] I had my heroes approach Saturn and actually enter the ring system. In doing so I very carefully described the rings, making use of observations from Earth’s surface to do so.

Now, from Earth’s surface, some 800 million miles from Saturn, we see the rings as solid and unbroken except for the black line of the Cassini division that seems to separate them into two rings. The portion of the rings closest to Saturn is considerably dimmer than the rest of the ring system, and that portion is usually considered a third ring (the so-called “crepe ring.”) And that was how I described the rings as seen by my space-travelers in the story.

Yet it stands to reason (at least, now it stands to reason) that if we could see the ring system from a nearer distance, we would see greater detail. We would see divisions—places where fewer particles were in orbit so that we would see dimmer lines separating brighter lines—divisions that would simply not be seen at great distances. Earth’s surface telescopes would just blur them out and record only the thickest of the dim lines—the Cassini division.

The closer we would get, the more numerous and the thinner the bright lines would get as visibility became clearer and clearer, until, when we were as close as we could get and still see all the rings, the rings would look like a grooved record—which is what they do look like.

Suppose I had figured this out in 1952 and had described the rings in that fashion. Even if I had missed such things as shadowy “spokes” in the ring, and “braided” rings, things that were absolutely unpredictable, it would have been great if I had imagined the fine divisions. That was an easy deduction to make and if I had described the rings in that fashion then, as soon as those rings had been probed I would have announced that I had anticipated what they had discovered. (You think that modesty would have held me back? Don’t be an idiot!)

How great that would have been! As it is, my failure to see this marks me down as not very bright, and that is there, for all to see, in “The Martian Way.” To be sure, no astronomer saw the truth about the rings in 1952, but what of that? An astronomer is only an astronomer and his vision is naturally limited. I am a science fiction writer and more is expected of me.

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