Enormous new ring discovered around Saturn
Monday, October 19th, 2009
By: Dave Heller
dheller@whyy.org
An enormous ring has been discovered around Saturn by the Spitzer space telescope. The discovery helped solve a long standing mystery about one of Saturn's moons. Also, a near miss for earth as an asteroid once thought to be on a collision coarse with earth in 2029 will now have at least an 18,000 mile gap between its passage and earth. 18,000 miles is still a small distance in celestial terms, but the concern seems to be lessening.
Listen:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
See images of Saturn's Ring from the Spitzer space telescope at spitzer.caltech.edu
For photo's of Saturn's unusual moon visit antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
