The science columns of today’s newspapers are buzz with the news that NASA has discovered a huge new ring around Saturn, extending up to 8 million miles from the planet. The ring is believed to have a complex interaction with the moons Phoebe and Iapetus, with ring material originating from Phoebe and being deposited on the “dark side” of Iapetus, where Sir Arthur C Clarke once placed a giant monolith. For further details see the BBC, and Paul McAuley’s excellent recent article for Clarkesworld.
Update: The article in Nature has just appeared in my feeds.
This is so cool.
Maybe I am overly pedantic, but I think that it is incorrect to say “NASA has discovered …”. The discovery was by three university astronomers using a NASA telescope. Two of the three Nature authors, Verbiscer, A. J (first author) and Verbiscer, A. J are in the astronomy department of the University of Virginia, and the third, Hamilton, D. P. is at the University of Maryland.
Of the press reports I’ve seen, the announcement doesn’t even seem to be a NASA press release, but rather the paper to Nature becoming “un embargoed” and released by that publication.
Consider a telescope on Earth. If an astronomer using the Very Large Array radio telescope announces a discovery using VLA data, is it a discovery of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which runs the VLA, or is it a discovery by the astronomer?
George
George:
Point taken. I was rather busy with other things yesterday and on this story just recycled sloppy journalism from elsewhere. My apologies to the actual discoverers of the ring (whoever they might be).