rilliant discoveries, he naturally sought to examine
the other planets, and accordingly directed his telescope to Saturn.
Here, again, Galileo at once made a discovery. He saw that Saturn
presented a visible form like the other planets, but that it differed
from any other telescopic object, inasmuch as it appeared to him to be
composed of three bodies which always touched each other and always
maintained the same relative positions. These three bodies were in a
line--the central one was the largest, and the two others were east and
west of it. There was nothing he had hitherto seen in the heavens which
filled his mind with such astonishment, and which seemed so wholly
inexplicable.

In his endeavours to understand this mysterious object, Galileo
continued his observations during the year 1610, and, to his amazement,
he saw the two lesser bodies gradually become smaller and smaller,
until, in the course of the two following years, they had entirely
vanished, and the planet simply appeared with a round disc like Jupiter.
Here, again, was a new source of anxiety to Galileo. He had at that day
to contend against the advocates of the ancient system of astronomy, who
derided his discoveries and refused to accept his theories. He had
announced his observation of the composite nature of Saturn; he had now
to tell of the gradual decline and the ultimate extinction of these two
auxiliary globes, and he naturally feared that his opponents would seize
the opportunity of pronouncing that the whole of his observations were
illusory.[25] "What," he remarks, "is to be said concerning so strange a
metamorphosis? Are the two lesser stars consumed after the manner of the
solar spots? Have they vanished and suddenly fled? Has Saturn perhaps,
devoured his own children? Or were the appearances indeed illusion or
fraud, with which the glasses have so long deceived me, as well as many
others to whom I have shown them? Now, perhaps, is the time come to
revive the well-nigh withered hopes of those who, guided by more
profound contemplations, have discovered the fallacy of the new
observations, and demonstrated the utter impossibility of their
existence. I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so
unlooked for, and so novel. The shortness of the time, the unexpected
nature of the event, the weakness of my understanding, and the fear of
being mistaken, have greatly confounded me."

But Galileo was not mistaken. The objects were really t