Saturn's Newest Ring Is The Largest In The Solar System

When it comes to planets with ring systems in our solar system, we all know that Saturn has rings. What we didn't know for decades was that the traditional ring system we all know about wasn't all of the rings Saturn had. In 2009, scientists discovered a new ring around Saturn and after being researched for years, scientists think they now know how large the newest ring around Saturn is.

In fact, scientists say that the newest ring around Saturn is so massive that it is the largest in the solar system. The ring is called the Phoebe ring and it is very faint, which is why it took so long to discover. According to the team, the Phoebe ring is 270 times the size of Saturn and over 10 times larger than Saturn's E ring.

That E Ring is the second largest ring system in the solar system. The narrow rather blurry image in this story is the very first image of the Phoebe ring in its entirety. That white dot in the 9 o'clock position in the image is the moon Phoebe.

The image came from the NASA WISE spacecraft and the team has determined that the Phoebe ring is made predominantly of small dust particles about 10 microns in size. The orbit of this ring is tilted 27-degrees from the main ring plane with the bulk of the material starting at about 3.7 million miles from the planet.

SOURCE: CBS News