New ring discovered around Saturn Options

[alan]

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

[imipak]

There's a great interview with Dr Verbiscer on BBC Radio 4's "The World at One" current affairs programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qptc

Starts about 26 minutes in. The "Listen Again" links for the 7th October should, I think, work outside the UK.

(Edit - corrected spelling of Dr Verbiscer's name. Twice! D'oh )