Latest Planetary ring Stories
WASHINGTON, April 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn's rings. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) These observations make Saturn's rings the only location besides Earth, the moon, and Jupiter where scientists and amateur astronomers have been able to observe impacts as they occur. Studying the impact rate of...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA said on Thursday that its Cassini spacecraft provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids crashing into Saturn's rings. Previously, scientists had only witnessed impacts on Earth, the moon and Jupiter as they occurred. Studying the impact rate of meteorites outside the Saturnian system helps scientists understand how different planetary systems in our Solar System formed. The meteoroids that impacted Saturn are...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A new study published in the journal Nature found that the "rain" of charged water particles in Saturn's atmosphere influences the composition and temperature of the planet's upper atmosphere and rings. The study, led by the University of Leicester in England, reveals that there is a significant interaction between its atmosphere and ring system. "The main effect of ring rain is that it acts to 'quench' the ionosphere of Saturn....
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA's Cassini spacecraft has unveiled new data about how Saturn's moons and rings are like an antique shop. Gianrico Filacchione, a Cassini participating scientist at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome, published a paper online in The Astrophysical Journal about how Saturn's moons and rings are gently worn, vintage goods from around the time of our solar system's birth. He suggests these bodies date back more than...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The international Cassini spacecraft, a NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and Italian Space Agency (ASI) jointly-operated project, has taken some unique pictures of Earth's twin planet from the perspective of Saturn. The Cassini-Huygens mission launched on October 15, 1997, traveling 2.2 billion miles toward Saturn, reaching the distant ringed-planet June 30, 2004. The orbiter includes 18 sophisticated science instruments to help...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Delivered just in time for the holiday season, another glorious, backlit image of the planet Saturn has arrived from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which has been in orbit around the planet for more than eight years. Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn's shadow during its 174th orbit around the gas giant on October 17, 2012. This positioning made for a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the Sun and...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Planetary scientists claim in a paper published in Icarus that Saturn's moons may have formed due to giant impacts. Erik Asphaug, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), presented the new model at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Asphaug and co-author Andreas Reufer of the University of Bern found that...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As the Cassini spacecraft hurtles around Saturn along its continuing mission, NASA announced the fifteen-year anniversary of the probe’s launch this week. The $3.3-billion mission lifted off the launch pad on October 15, 1997 and has traveled over 3.8 billion miles since — flying past Venus twice and Jupiter once en route to entering orbit around the ringed planet in 2004. The mission has provided a treasure trove of...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online "I can see Uranus!" You could say that very phrase if you log on to Slooh Space Camera on Saturday night to get a glimpse of Uranus and the Harvest Moon. Slooh.com said it will be broadcasting live observatory feeds of Uranus and the full moon starting at 4:00 p.m. pacific time, 7:00 p.m. eastern. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and lies about 1.787 billion miles away. It takes 83 Earth years for Uranus to complete one...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) released an image of Saturn's rings on Monday provided by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Clumpy particles in the B-ring are in stark contrast to the delicately ordered ringlets of the rest of Saturn's rings. Saturn's B-ring is the largest and brightest of the gas giant's rings, the outer portion of which can be seen on the left side of the image. The moon, Mimas, which orbits Saturn once during every...
Latest Planetary ring Reference Libraries
Planetary Ring -- A planetary ring is a ring of dust and other small particles orbiting around a planet in a flat disc-shaped region. The most spectacular and famous planetary rings are those around Saturn, but all four of the solar system's gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) possess ring systems of their own. The origin of planetary rings is not precisely known, but they are thought to be unstable and dissipate over the course of tens or hundreds of millions of...
Planet Neptune -- Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun. It is a gas giant. Orbiting so far from the sun, Neptune receives very little heat. Its 'surface' temperature is -218 degrees Celsius (below zero). However, the planet seems to have an internal source of heat. It is thought that this may be leftover heat generated by infalling matter during the planet's birth, now slowly radiating away into space. Neptune's atmosphere has the highest wind speeds in the solar system, up to...
The Planet Saturn -- in astronomy, 6th planet from the sun. Astronomical and Physical Characteristics of Saturn Saturn's orbit lies between those of Jupiter and Uranus; its mean distance from the sun is c.886 million mi (1.43 billion km), almost twice that of Jupiter, and its period of revolution is about 291/2 years. Saturn appears in the sky as a yellow, starlike object of the first magnitude. When viewed through a telescope, it is seen as a golden sphere, crossed by a series of...
Jupiter's Moon Adrastea -- Adrastea [a-DRAS-tee-uh] is the second innermost known satellite of Jupiter. Adrastea was the daughter of Jupiter and Ananke and the distributor of rewards and punishments. Adrastea and Metis lie within Jupiter's main ring and may be the source of material for the ring. Very little is known about Adrastea. Discovered by D. Jewitt & E. Danielson Date of discovery 1979 Mass (kg) 1.91e+16 Mass (Earth = 1) 3.1961e-09 Radius (km) 12.5x10x7.5...
Jupiter's moon Metis -- Metis [MEE-tis] is the innermost known satellite of Jupiter. It was named after a Titaness who was a consort of Zeus (Jupiter). Metis and Adrastea lie within Jupiter's main ring and may be the source of material for the ring. Very little is known about Metis. 40 kilometers (25 miles) in diameter, orbiting 128,000 kilometers (79,500 miles) from Jupiter. Discovered by Stephen Synnott Date of discovery 1979 Mass (kg) 9.56e+16 Mass (Earth = 1)...
![Meteors Meet Saturn\](/media/gallery/cassinihuygens-mission/thumbs/thumbs_pia14938.jpg "Meteors Meet Saturn\")
![A Shepherd\](/media/gallery/cassinihuygens-mission/thumbs/thumbs_pia14657.jpg "A Shepherd\")
