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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><FONT
size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered
an enormous ring around Saturn — by far the largest of the giant planet's many
rings.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><o:p><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><FONT
size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">The new belt lies at the far reaches of the
Saturnian system, with an orbit tilted 27 degrees from the main ring plane. The
bulk of its material starts about six million kilometres away from the
planet and extends outward roughly another 12 million kilometres One of Saturn's
farthest moons, Phoebe, circles within the newfound ring, and is likely the
source of its material.<o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><o:p><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><FONT
size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">Saturn's newest halo is thick, too — its
vertical height is about 20 times the diameter of the planet. It would take
about one billion Earths stacked together to fill the
ring.<o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><o:p><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><FONT
size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">The ring itself is tenuous, made up of a
thin array of ice and dust particles. Spitzer's infrared eyes were able to spot
the glow of the band's cool dust, which is only about 80 Kelvin (minus 193
degrees Centigrade).<o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><o:p><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><FONT
size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">The ring would be difficult to see with
visible-light telescopes. Its particles are diffuse and may even extend beyond
the bulk of the ring material all the way in to Saturn and all the way out to
interplanetary space. The relatively small numbers of particles in the ring
wouldn't reflect much visible light, especially out at Saturn where sunlight is
weak.<o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><o:p><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><o:p><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN-ZA><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">More at </FONT><A
href="http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2009-19/release.shtml"><FONT
size=3
face="Times New Roman">http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2009-19/release.shtml</FONT></A></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>