Posted on 04/06/2006 12:47:03 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Two outer rings, one red the other blue, have been observed around the distant planet Uranus.
While Uranus had been known to have inner rings of neutral color, the newly discovered outer rings show color contrasts that researchers think are caused by light reflected off particles that differ in size from one ring to the other.
And the outermost ring is only the second blue ring to have been observed, a team led by Imke de Pater of the University of California, Berkeley, reports in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Also blue is Saturn's outermost ring, the researchers said. And they noted that both of the known blue rings have a moon embedded within them, while the red rings do not.
They speculated that the moons swept up larger pieces of debris, leaving only dust and tiny items that reflected more blue light than the red ring which could have larger pieces of debris.
After a terrible day today, you made me smile, Bobby. Thank you. Thank you including me on your ping.
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They only found them because they had their telescopes pointed at their students bscksides instead of skyward.
Has anyone suggested "Urectum" yet?
I'm hoping they'll branch of in a totally new direction. 'Europa' is cool, but it's already taken.
How 'bout 'Europenus'?
It's a new article.
Saturn has 7 large moons and the total number of moons is still unknown. Jupiter has 63 moons. Uranus 27. But neither Jupiter's nor Uranus' rings are as prominent as Saturn's.. why ?
Scientists explain their origin as arising from gravitational forces of different moons aligning in such a way to control tiny particles in a ring shaped pattern. The bigger particles/objects get sucked into these moons. Since there are more moons in Jupiter, isnt there a greater likelihood of having more prominent rings over there ?
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