Through the images taken from a telescope in Chile it is possible to observe the main ring system of Uranus taken with reflected sunlight.
It is well known that NASA is reluctant to make official statements about its studies, and therefore its interstellar discoveries. This time, a significant novelty is provided to us by two professors from the University of Leicester and by U.S. colleagues who have published a special in the Astronomical Journal.
In the common opinion, the characteristic rings of cosmic dust are compared to Saturn. It’s less obvious for Uranus, because nobody had ever conducted in-depth studies on the rings that surround it, also because they are invisible to almost all telescopes, at least until now …
Observations confirm that the brightest and densest ring of Uranus, called the epsilon ring, is different from the other ring systems known in our solar system, in particular the rings of Saturn, of renowned beauty.
The difference also unfolds in width and spectropic constraint. Uranus rings, therefore, are substantially different from Saturn’s main ring: they are extremely dark, like coal”, said Molter, a recent graduate student “They are, to say the least, narrow compared to Saturn’s notorious rings. The widest, the epsilon ring, varies from 20 to 100 kilometers wide, while Saturn’s ring is 100 or tens of thousands of kilometers wide. To date there are therefore 13 rings around Uranus.
According to the experts who conducted the case, in the near future will be conducted further studies on the composition of the Uranus rings with the instrumentation that provided these first findings completely unexpected.
This is only the first step towards a full understanding of their composition, as well as of the even more relevant fact of the same or lesser origin than the original cosmic material.