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Dust-Ring around Saturn
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What has created a large Dust-Ring around Saturn?
At over 200 times the radius of Saturn and over 50 times the radius of Saturn's expansive "E"-Ring, the newly discovered Dust-Ring is the largest planetary ring yet imaged. The Ring was found in IR Light by the Earth-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope.
A leading hypothesis for its origin is impact material ejected from Saturn's moon Phoebe, which orbits right through the Dust-Ring's middle.
An additional possibility is that the Dust-Ring supplies the mysterious material that coats part of Saturn's moon Japetus, which orbits near the Dust-Ring's Inner Edge. Pictured above in the inset, part of the Dust-Ring appears as false-color orange in front of numerous background stars.
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