UNDERSTANDING THE RINGS first, Saturn looks like it has just one large ring. However, it actually has seven major rings, and each is made up of thousands of smaller ones. In total, the rings are more than 250,000 kilometers' that's over two-thirds of the distance from Earth to our n spite of this, the rings are quite thin. In fact, on average, they're less than 50 meters thick. From Earth, the rings look like they are solid, with clear edges. However, this is deceptive They are actually made from billions of particles of rock and ice. Some particles are as small as grain of sand. Others are the size of mountains.