Thursday, October 08, 2009 PARIS: Stunned astronomers have discovered a new mega-ring around Saturn and believe its genesis is a small, distant moon of the giant planet.Phoebe, a Saturnian satellite measuring only 214 kilometres (133 miles) across, probably provides the record-breaking tenuous circle of dusty and icy debris, they report on Thursday in Nature, the weekly British science journal.The largest ring identified so far in the Solar System, the circle starts about six million kilometres (3.7 million miles) from Saturn and extends outwardly by another 12 million kms (7.4 million miles), within the orbit of Phoebe.A trio of US astronomers led by Anne Verbiscer of the University of Virginia used NASA's orbiting Spitzer telescope in February this year to get a close look at space in Phoebe's neighbourhood."This is one supersized ring," Verbiscer was quoted by NASA as saying."If you could see the ring, it would span the width of two full moons' worth of s...
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