Blue ring discovered around Uranus

[telfrow]

<i>The outermost ring of Uranus, discovered just last year, is bright blue, making it only the second known blue ring in the solar system, according to a report this week in the journal Science. Perhaps not coincidentally, both blue rings are associated with small moons. <br /><br />"The outer ring of Saturn is blue and has Enceledus right smack at its brightest spot, and Uranus is strikingly similar, with its blue ring right on top of Mab's orbit," said Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. "The blue color says that this ring is predominantly submicron-sized material, much smaller than the material in most other rings, which appear red." <br /><br />The authors of the paper in the April 7 issue of Science are de Pater, Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.; Heidi B. Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.; and Seran Gibbard of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. <br /><br />The similarity between these outer rings implies a similar explanation for the blue color, according to the authors. Many scientists now ascribe Saturn's blue E ring to the small dust, gas and ice particles spewed into Encedadus' orbit by newly discovered plumes on that moon's surface. However, this is unlikely to be the case with Mab, a small, dead, rocky ball, about 15 miles across – one-twentieth the diameter of Enceladus. <br /><br />Instead, the astronomers suspect both rings owe their blue color to subtle forces acting on dust in the rings that allow smaller particles to survive while larger ones are recaptured by the moon. <br /><br />"We know now that there is at least one way to make a blue ring that doesn't involve plumes, because Mab is surely too small to be internally active," said Showalter. He and astronomer Jack Lissauer of NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., discovered Mab in Hubble Space Telescope images in 2003.</i><br /><br />http://www.physorg.com/</safety_wrapper <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[voyagerwsh]

New Dust Belts of Uranus: One Ring, Two Ring, Red Ring, Blue Ring<br /><br />Abstract, <i>Journal Science</i>

 

[plutocrass]

I found this joke

 

[plutocrass]

FRY: This is a great, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus. Heh heh.<br />LEELA: I don't get it.<br />PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.<br />FRY: Oh. What's it called now?<br />PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: Urectum.

 

[plutocrass]

<crickets chirping>

 

[lampblack]

But upon reading that a blue ring had discovered around Uranus, how many folks do you suppose -- you know -- went to a sufficiently private place and <i>checked</i>? <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Ain't the only thing Ty-D-Bowl has left a blue ring on . . . .<br /><br /><br />{sorry, can't pass up these perfect set ups}<br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>