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New ring discovered around Saturn
alan
post Oct 7 2009, 12:25 AM
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The newly discovered ring spans from 128 to 207 times the radius of Saturn – or farther – and is 2.4 million kilometres thick. It was found using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which revealed an infrared glow thought to come from sun-warmed dust in a tenuous ring.

The discovery was announced on Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. "This is a unique planetary ring system, because it's the largest planetary ring in the solar system," team leader Anne Verbiscer of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville told the meeting.

The source of the ring's material seems to be Saturn's far-flung moon Phoebe, which orbits the planet at an average distance of 215 times the radius of Saturn. When Phoebe is hit by wayward space rocks, the impacts could generate debris that fills the rings.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1792...und-saturn.html

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HughFromAlice
post Oct 9 2009, 01:12 PM
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News of the new Saturnian ring has travelled fast. Without being chauvinistic, I am glad to say I come from a forward looking scientifically literate country.......... our only quality national daily 'The Australian' has been quick to snaffle up this newsworthy item and give it a prominent place today. Who says we're behind the times down this way??????

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Round here it's out with the delta Vs and albedo calculations mad.gif and back to the good old trines and sesquiquadrates smile.gif ! Perhaps I'll swallow national pride and keep checking the UMSF pages laugh.gif !
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- alan   New ring discovered around Saturn   Oct 7 2009, 12:25 AM
- - maschnitz   There's a nice illustration of it up already o...   Oct 7 2009, 03:01 AM
- - brellis   What a gorgeous discovery! This is the kind o...   Oct 7 2009, 04:02 AM
- - Julius   Could it be that Phoebe is a captured burnt out co...   Oct 7 2009, 04:18 AM
|- - Rob Pinnegar   QUOTE (Julius @ Oct 6 2009, 10:18 PM) Cou...   Oct 7 2009, 02:33 PM
||- - dilo   This is the last present from cryo-Spitzer... In...   Oct 7 2009, 05:33 PM
||- - centsworth_II   QUOTE (dilo @ Oct 7 2009, 12:33 PM) Inter...   Oct 7 2009, 06:39 PM
|- - Anne Verbiscer   QUOTE (Julius @ Oct 7 2009, 12:18 AM) Cou...   Oct 10 2009, 10:16 PM
- - PhilCo126   Here's another drawing:   Oct 7 2009, 10:23 AM
- - stevesliva   Still an artist's impression. But the article...   Oct 7 2009, 12:12 PM
|- - stevesliva   QUOTE (stevesliva @ Oct 7 2009, 08:12 AM)...   Oct 14 2009, 04:12 AM
- - imipak   There's a great interview with Dr Verbiscer on...   Oct 7 2009, 12:31 PM
- - maschnitz   Hyperion appears to be more like a burnt-out comet...   Oct 7 2009, 05:23 PM
- - ngunn   What's special about Phoebe? If the material i...   Oct 7 2009, 09:00 PM
- - volcanopele   I don't think there is anything special about ...   Oct 7 2009, 10:13 PM
|- - SFJCody   Maybe Neptune's large irregular Nereid also ha...   Oct 7 2009, 10:19 PM
- - Gsnorgathon   Would Phoebe's retrograde orbit contribute to ...   Oct 7 2009, 10:23 PM
- - volcanopele   not necessarily. As I pointed out before, for exa...   Oct 7 2009, 10:27 PM
|- - Gsnorgathon   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Oct 7 2009, 02:27 PM...   Oct 9 2009, 07:10 PM
- - HughFromAlice   News of the new Saturnian ring has travelled fast....   Oct 9 2009, 01:12 PM
- - mchan   Unenviable that you have astrologers finding a gia...   Oct 9 2009, 01:20 PM
|- - brellis   QUOTE (mchan @ Oct 9 2009, 06:20 AM) Unen...   Oct 9 2009, 05:19 PM
- - djellison   Would it be shorter to write a list of Saturnian m...   Oct 9 2009, 03:56 PM
- - Hungry4info   Back during the Cassini flyby of Phoebe, I recall ...   Oct 10 2009, 03:22 AM
- - nprev   I don't know how they could have confirmed tha...   Oct 10 2009, 04:52 AM
- - nprev   Interesting! Could you please describe some of...   Oct 11 2009, 02:14 AM
|- - Anne Verbiscer   QUOTE (nprev @ Oct 10 2009, 10:14 PM) Int...   Nov 2 2009, 09:03 PM
- - elakdawalla   One idle thought led to another: I wondered if Cas...   Oct 12 2009, 09:08 PM
- - Paolo   I resurrect this years old thread to post this: th...   Jan 24 2014, 06:27 AM
- - Paolo   a new article in Nature on WISE observations of Ph...   Jun 10 2015, 06:54 PM


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