The orbiting probe managed to snap images of the rings showing mysterious dusty streaks on three separate occasions from 2005 to 2012. (See more pictures taken by the Cassini spacecraft.)

After a computer analysis of the streaks, mission scientists concluded that they could have been created only by particles impacting the rings less than an hour before the pictures were taken. (Related pictures: "Huge 'Snowballs' Seen Piercing Saturn's Outer Ring.")

"The actual occurrence of impact processes has previously been observed only on Earth, the moon, and Jupiter, so we have put Saturn's rings into select company in that respect," said Matthew Tiscareno, Cassini team member at Cornell University in New