rings

Saturn’s rings younger than previously thought — just a few hundred million years: IU News

fafa

Saturn.

New research reveals that Saturn’s rings are much younger than the planet itself. Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Saturn’s rings are much younger than scientists once thought, according to new research from Indiana University Professor Emeritus of Astronomy Richard Durisen — and they are not here to stay.

For decades, there has been debate about the origin of Saturn’s icy rings. But according to two new studies from Durisen, published in Icarus, the rings are no more than a few hundred million years old — much younger than the planet itself, which was formed 4.5 billion

…
Read More
rings

Zebras receive basketball championship rings | The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

fafa

As a new basketball season dawns, Pine Bluff High School supporters were still celebrating the championship season that was Sunday night.

The Zebras received their championship rings during a banquet at the Pine Bluff Convention Center, eight months after they won the 5A state final over Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs.

Senior Courtney Crutchfield was among the players who received multiple awards. The All-Arkansas Preps Male Athlete of the Year was also the 5A tournament most valuable player, the 5A-South Conference Player of the Year for the second year in a row and named All-State.

Yet as the one-time University

…
Read More
rings

Saturn’s rings may be no more than 400 million years old

fafa

Saturn’s rings might have formed while trilobites scuttled about on Earth. Space dust has been accumulating on the icy halos for no more than 400 million years, researchers report in the May 12 Science Advances.

The 4.5-billion-year-old planet appears to have acquired its iconic ornamentation relatively recently, says physicist Sascha Kempf of the University of Colorado Boulder. “We’re quite lucky to see a ring in the first place.”

The rings of Saturn are made of countless icy particles, which become covered with dust as tiny meteoroids strike them. These dustings darken the rings’ complexion, like mud sullies snow on

…
Read More
rings

Saturn: Hubble spies mysterious shadows on planet’s rings

fafa

The Hubble Space Telescope captured a newly revealed image of the mysterious, ghostly shadows on Saturn’s rings — the latest sighting of the so-called “spokes” that continue to baffle scientists.

The composite photo, released Thursday by NASA, was taken by Hubble on Oct. 22 as Saturn was about 1.37 billion kilometers away, according to the space agency. The space observatory has been orbiting Earth just a few hundred miles above the surface for more than three decades.

Astronomers have long known about the perplexing spokes on Saturn’s rings, which look like apparitions skating along the rings and can be spotted

…
Read More