New rings found around Uranus (AP/CNN)

***
While Uranus had been known to have inner rings of neutral color, the newly discovered outer rings show color contrasts that researchers think are caused by light reflected off particles that differ in size from one ring to the other.

The outermost ring is only the second blue ring to have been observed, a team led by Imke de Pater of the University of California, Berkeley, reports in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Also blue is Saturn's outermost ring, the researchers said. And they noted that each of the known blue rings has a moon embedded within it, while the red rings do not.

They speculated that the moons swept up larger pieces of debris, leaving only dust and tiny items that reflect more blue light than the red ring, which could have larger pieces of debris.

link: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/04/06/rings.of.uranus.ap/index.html

Ba-dump-bump!

notice that the red rings have have larger pieces of debris...

but what you could you expect ?

um...

walks away slowly

:shrug:

Better not tell the religious right about that.

n/t

...to say they are around the planet's butt-cheeks. :hide:

Assuming that it wasn't sunlight, since that is where the sun don't shine.

may be hemorrhoids.

I bet not

but it's fun

I remember that day. The last time I heard the word pronounced 'yur-Anus' on television was back in the 80's. Peter Jennings (IIRC) had just heard himself say, "NASA's probe is approaching your anus".

There was a long pause, an eyeblink or two, and then finally a commercial break.

From that day forward, "Uranus" was officially pronounced 'UR-anus'...

Just for the record, I believe the best transliteration from the original Greek is "Ouranos" -- the first syllable pronounced with a long "oo" sound.

So, technically, all this could have been avoided.:)

"Sometimes you find things you aren't looking for," Showalter said. "No one thought this region of Uranus was very interesting."

I saw the thread title and clicked on it more out of anticipation of snarky comments than to read the actual article! :)

.

that pretty much sums it up