Pingie: HTTP:: Massive Saturn Ring Discovered

HTTP:: Massive Saturn Ring Discovered
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The image most of us have of Saturn is that of a gas giant closely surrounded by its rings, which are very thin, yet very wide. Now, astronomers prove us wrong, showing that the planet indeed has another, massive ring around it, which extends as much as 13 million kilometers away from it, around the moon Phoebe. This is about 50 times farther out than its other rings, astronomers say. The find helps explain a long-standing mystery about the moon Iapetus, which exhibits a very peculiar trait, in that half of it is darker than the other, the BBC News reports. In a new scientific paper, published in the latest issue of the respected journal Nature, experts from the University of Virginia, in the United States, led by Anne Verbiscer, say that the most likely “fuel source” for the new ring is the debris emanating from small impacts of the moon Phoebe, which orbits Saturn very far out into space. As collisions take their toll on the crater-filled surface of the moon, parti!
cles are spewed around it, forming the massive ring. Experts believe that the finer particles then fall towards the gas giant, striking the moon Iapetus head-on. “It has essentially a head-on collision. The particles smack Iapetus like bugs on a windshield,” the expert explains. The walnut-shaped inner moon has a two-tone appearanc...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/Massive-Saturn-Ring-Discovered-123603.shtml
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