Saturn and its Rings: Four Centuries of Imperfect Amodal Completion

Abstract

The planet Saturn is a familiar image for us, but it presents perceptual peculiarities that impeded the discovery of its structure and which can still be misleading today. Saturn appears to be surrounded by rings which hide it to a certain extent and then continue behind the outline of the planet. What we perceive is the result of a double amodal completion in which the planetary globe and the rings exchange the roles of occluding and occluded surface. Saturn was hidden to 17th-century astronomers for half a century because their rudimentary telescopes did not reveal the pictorial clues that are fundamental for discovering such a complex perceptual organization as that formed by a globe surrounded by rings. Moreover, the existence of a celestial body of this nature was inconceivable in light of the knowledge of those times. The improvement of telescopes has substantially enriched our knowledge of Saturn, but historic documents highlight the importance of perceptual organization factors. Astronomical observations were a rich source of information, but only Huygens was capable of integrating them and hypothesizing the true structure of Saturn. His drawings are the result of a particular ability to integrate observations and also the ability to use pictorial information. It is likely that these diagrams were an important instrument for the solution. The image of Saturn, however clear, will not find universal consensus. The planet has “residual (perceptual) capacities” of hiding itself which can even deceive modern instruments. Here, we will try to understand why.