NASA's Hubble Discovers New Rings and Moons Around Uranus

[Astronuc]

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2005/33/full/

To the surprise of astronomers, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed a pair of new rings around the distant planet Uranus. The largest is twice the diameter of the planet's previously known rings. The new rings are so far away that they are being called Uranus's "second ring system."

In addition, Hubble has spied two small satellites, one sharing its orbit with one of the newly discovered rings. Even more surprisingly, precise analysis of the data reveals that the orbits of Uranus's family of inner moons have changed significantly in the last decade. Collectively, these new discoveries mean that Uranus has a densely packed, rapidly changing, and possibly unstable dynamical system of orbiting bodies.

 

[Chronos]

Even the 'hood' is still laden with unexpected twists. I would like to see a little more Hubble time dedicated to planetary studies. Perhaps some of the answers to deep space mysteries lay at our doorstep. Anyways, my instinctive reaction to this finding is that Uranus had a recent encounter with a Kuiper object.

 

[Astronuc]

Further news on Uranus -

Blue ring discovered around Uranus - http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/04/06_bluering.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4883848.stm