Huygens Discovers Titan

1655

The Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, using an improved telescope he had ground himself, noticed a moon orbiting Saturn and named it, unhelpfully, Luna Saturni. It was the first new satellite discovered since Galileo's Jovian moons forty-five years earlier. Huygens would go on to describe Saturn's rings properly in 1659, solving one of the most puzzling sights in the night sky.