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Complexity Digest 2009.22 - 13
http://comdig.unam.mx/index.php?id_issue=2009.22#32927
2009/10/23

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Editor-in-Chief: Carlos Gershenson
Founding Editor: Gottfried Mayer

Solar System: Saturn's colossal ring, Nature
 









Excerpt:      This diagram depicts the newly discovered1 'Phoebe ring' around
Saturn, which spans at least 25 million kilometres and is the largest ring known
to be orbiting a planet. The ring corresponds closely to the orbit of Phoebe,
the largest of Saturn's outer 'irregular moons', and apparently the source of
most of the ring's material. The ring is tilted owing to the influence of the
Sun. Dust in the ring probably spirals inward and hits the leading hemisphere of
the moon Iapetus, triggering that moon's distinctive two-toned coloration. Also
shown are the orbit of Saturn's largest moon Titan, the planet itself and its
other rings.  IMAGES COURTESY NASA/JPL-CALTECH       On page 1098 of this issue,
Verbiscer and colleagues1 report the discovery of an enormous ring around
Saturn. The authors found this most tenuous of Saturn's known rings, which
covers some 10,000 times as much area as the planet's photogenic main rings.
Source: Solar System: Saturn's colossal ring[ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/4611064a
], Matthew S. Tiscareno, Matthew M. Hedman, DOI: 10.1038/4611064a, Nature 461,
1064-1065, 2009/10/22

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