The impact that technology has had on our society can be shown in no better way than when we turn to the stars. Before August of 2009 scientists were stumped by Saturn's disappearing rings, which seemed to vanish every 15 years. Now, thanks to the satellite Cassini that revolves around Saturn, we know that it is due to the extreme thinness of the rings themselves, and the position of the Earth that is the reason they appear to disappear. It works likes this: Saturn and Earth experience equinox at the same every spring and fall, however it takes Saturn roughly 30 years to make its way around the sun, resulting in much longer seasons, and equinox's to occur every 15 Earth years. As it rotates, Saturn's rings are seen from different angles from the sun, as it has a tilt with that of its orbital plane. When the rings cross the orbital plane, or an equinox happens, they are hit directly by the sun, and vanish. Because the Earth is so close the sun, the rings at equinox are edge-on from the perspective of Earth bound astronomers, which gives us the same view of the sun as they are hit directly.
This photo shows this process in a 6 year span (south pole to equinox)
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