Giant Ring Around Saturn
The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered a new ring around the planet Saturn. However, this ring is nothing like the normal rings that one thinks of encircling the planet. This ring is made up of debris cast out by Saturn’s distant moon Phoebe and is some 8 million miles away from the planet.
Astronomers have suspected that this ring might exist for some time. Due to the enormity of the ring, scientists have only just now, utilizing the advanced suite of instruments on the Spitzer Space Telescope. Scientists deduced that their might be a ring in this vicinity due to the two-faced nature of another of Saturn’s moons – Iapetus. This moon is dark on one side and bright white on its other side.
Although the ring is extremely cold, (at around minus 315 degrees Fahrenheit) it does give off some thermal radiation. It also is tilted – 27 degrees off of Saturn’s main ring system. To get a grip on the size of this newly-discovered ring in comparison with the planet Saturn itself, the image above shows what the complete Saturn-ring system would look like.
