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Saturday, April 08, 2006

 

Blue Ringed Planet.

Image Credit, Imke de Pater, Heidi Hammel, Seran Gibbard, Mark Showalter

Blue rings are generally associated with poisonous octopi, but Uranus's faint outer ring, discovered last year, turns out to be blue. Saturn also has a blue ring (the only other planet with a blue ring), associated with the small moon Enceladus, while Uranus's blue moon is associate with the orbit of the small moon Mab. The blue colour is probably due to the small size of the particles scattering light. The blue ring around Saturn is probably due to Enceladus's water gysers. How Mab genereates its ring is unknown at present.

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