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New Uranus Moons and Rings Discovered

Posted by Zonk on from the remember-the-children-before-you-post dept.

Patrick Furlong writes "CNN reports that the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered two new moons and two new rings around Uranus. The moons had been imaged by Voyager 2 in 1986 but were not recognized as moons at the time." More from MSNBC, and the official Hubble Site. From the CNN article: "The Hubble images also confirmed the existence of another moon, Perdita, which was first identified in the Voyager 2 pictures but had eluded telescopes ever since. Many moons of Uranus are named after characters in Shakespeare, and these new moons follow suit. Mab is named for Queen Mab, who is the subject of a famous speech by the character Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet.'"

3 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Gas giants and rings by PIPBoy3000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At this point, the question seems to be, do gas giants ever not have rings? They seem to be celestial vacuum cleaners, attracting all sorts of debris. It's a good thing too, as it probably kept the orbital bombardment of Earth to a minimum.

  2. Hubble? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, tell me again why they're getting rid of the Hubble telescope?

  3. TV newscasts just got worth watching by cryfreedomlove · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The last time Uranus was in the news I got quite a kick out of watching TV news anchors squirm as they talked about Your Anus.