New ring seen around Saturn

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New ring seen around Saturn

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10 October,2009 11:59 pm

Scientists have spotted a huge new ring around Saturn -- the largest planetary ring seen yet in the solar system. The faint ring, made of tiny particles, partly marks the orbit of Saturn's distant moon Phoebe, Anne Verbiscer of the University of Virginia and colleagues reported in the journal Nature. Phoebe orbits the ringed planet at a radius of about 13 million kilometres and, evidently, objects colliding with Phoebe and kicking up dust keep the ring supplied with material. The closest analogs to the Phoebe ring are the two gossamer rings associated with Jupiter's inner satellites, Thebe and Amalthea, they wrote. These moons, too, are the source of dust kicked up by collisions. Galileo first spotted Saturn's colorful rings in 1610 with his telescope, and almost any amateur planet-spotter can see the densest of the giant planet's rings. Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune all have rings.