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Wednesday October 7, 2009
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Scientists have discovered a huge ring around Saturn--and no, not the ones we already all know about. (This isn't The Onion.)
NASA scientists have found a ring much further out from the planet, one that's made up of debris from Saturn's distant moon Phoebe, according to Space.com. It turns out astronomers have long suspected the presence of this ring because of the color of another one of the planet's moons, Iapetus. Iapetus has one dark side and one light side; some scientists figured that it could be debris dust from Phoebe, since the composition was very similar, according to the report.
No one saw it before because of its huge size. It took the brand new
Spitzer Space Telescope to find it in the infrared spectrum, by
detecting sunlight reflected from the tiny black particles. The ring is
so diffuse that "if you were there, you wouldn't know you were in a
ring"--according to Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, one
of the astronomers who discovered the ring, in the article.
Where
did this thing come from? That's the next big question--and the answer
probably lies somewhere along the line of asteroids colliding with
Phoebe over millions of years, creating dust that accumulated and
consolidated into orbit around Saturn. (Image credit: NASA)
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October 7, 2009 4:32 PM
I heard a blurb about this on the news this morning and I'm so glad that this is here so I can read more about it. :D
This is quite an impressive discovery - and a triumph for the people behind the Spitzer. And for Dr. Hamilton, who I'm quite familiar with. I'll bet he's really happy right now!
October 8, 2009 11:45 AM
There is so much more in the universe I would love to find out more about..!!!
October 8, 2009 5:00 PM
The Onion could run a story based on this and engage in a little self-promotion in the process: "Scientists Discover Huge Onion Ring Around Saturn."