Lord of the Rings

The ringed planet is at its brightest; check it out

No planet is cooler than the sixth one from the sun. Not Mars. Not Venus. Not even your cute little Uranus. No other rock orbiting the sun has those groovy rings like the hula hoops around Saturn's waist. It's funky and hip and there's a car named after it. This weekend Earth-bound star gazers will get a treat as Saturn appears high in the night sky, offering families and friends something truly marvelous to gawk at.

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More About

• Bill Dishong
• Jack Horkheimer
• Miami Museum of Science
• Astrology and Horoscopes
• Sciences

"This is the best we'll see Saturn for more than a quarter of a century," boasts Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium. "It's absolutely brilliant because it's so close and because its rings are tilted wide open, which makes them act like a giant reflector."

The ringed planet shows off its splendor to earthlings tonight as it enters the Gemini orbit, placing it at its highest point in our night sky, explains museum assistant director Bill Dishong. The placement illuminates the giant gaseous planet with the best light, he says, but that is not all that makes it so available to us at this time.

Saturn comes closer to Earth because it aligns itself directly opposite the sun from us during the winter. To top it off the planet's rings, made of dust particles and rock fragments coated with methane ice, open to their widest point, Dishong explains.

It all adds up to a special interplanetary event just in time for the holidays. While the astronomers see it as purely scientific, the result of a galaxy spinning in precise and predictable orbits, the astrologers and numerologists are no doubt having a field day as they seek to ascribe deeper meaning to this celestial spectacle.