Phoebe ring
The Phoebe ring is Saturn's largest ring . The ring was discovered in 2009 with the help of the Spitzer Space Telescope , and it was only examined more precisely by a team led by Douglas P. Hamilton. For this purpose, data from the WISE telescope, which carried out infrared investigations in 2010 and 2011, was used.
The ring has a diameter of 32.6 million kilometers or 0.24 AU . Its inner radius is proven to be 6 million kilometers, but it could also be half as large. The thickness is 2.4 million kilometers. The source of the ring particles is the Saturn moon Phoebe . The moon is exposed to numerous impacts and due to the low force of gravity, particles escape from the moon's gravity field during these impacts. The particles are pushed towards Saturn by the radiation pressure and because of the weak Poynting-Robertson effect . The particles then hit the moons Iapetus , Hyperion and Titan . The particles are considered to be the cause of Iapetus' one-sided black coloration. Hyperion is probably also obscured by these particles. Titan, on the other hand, is supposed to absorb all particles, as it has a relatively high force of gravity.
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Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Tilmann Althaus: The Phoebe ring around Saturn is even more gigantic - spectrum of science. A real giant is the Phoebe ring of Saturn, which was examined with the infrared satellite WISE. It turned out that it is much larger than previously assumed. In: Spectrum Online. June 11, 2015, accessed June 11, 2015 .