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Sunday
18Oct2009

Saturns Infrared Rings

It feels like new discoveries even within our own solar system are happening daily. This one highlights the awesome scale of these discoveries. It shows that there is an almost invisible ring around one of the largest planets in our solar system. This new ring was discovered by NASA's Spitzer deep space observatory.

The image is an artists conception which simulates the infra red image taking by the Spitzer telescope. It shows the massive ice and dust ring 6 million kilometres (3.7 million miles) from the planet and extends for another 12 million kilometres (7.4 million miles) making the rings diameter equivalent to another three hundred Saturn's lined up side by side.

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