Jul 11
Saturn finally depicted as having a thin, flat ring nowhere touching in Cosmotheoros (1698).
Interestingly, Cosmotheoros was probably the first work of science fiction, as it spoke of "planetarians" living on planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, whom also love geometry, music, and astronomy.
It was written by Christiaan Huygens on his deathbed; he lead a very solitary life, and modern psychologists interpret this last work as a desperate need to feel less lonely in our large universe by assigning intellectual peers to distant planets.
Beautifully, he needed to believe that when he looked up at the night sky, he would see thousands if not millions of cosmic friends looking back at him - making this vast universe warmer.
