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Biggest Saturn ring found

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 8, 2009

PASADENA, Calif. - The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the biggest but never-before-seen ring around the planet Saturn, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has announced.

The thin array of ice and dust particles lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian system, and its orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet's main ring plane, the laboratory said late Tuesday.
JPL spokeswoman Whitney Clavin said the ring is very diffuse and doesn't reflect much visible light, but the infrared Spitzer telescope was able to detect it.

The ring dust shines with thermal radiation.

No one had looked at its location with an infrared instrument before, Clavin said.

The bulk of the ring material starts about 3.7 million miles from the planet and extends outward about 7.4 million more miles.

Saturn's moon Phoebe orbits within the ring and is thought to be the source of the material.

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