The rings are made of countless chunks of very nearly pure water ice, some tiny, some several meters across. The way light passes through them changes their appearance — when it’s not the equinox, and the Sun is shining down on one side of the rings, they look different seen from the illuminated side versus “underneath”, from the unilluminated side. That’s because light reflecting off the rings (when seen from “above”, the sunlit side) is much stronger than the light that gets through. This dramatically changes the way they look, and a lot can be learned about their composition this way.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
