Blue Ring Around Uranus

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A new blue ring has been discovered circling Uranus, similar to Saturn's outermost ring. The discovery was made by combining visible-light images from Hubble with near-infrared photos from the Keck Telescope in Hawaii. Around Saturn, the blue ring is caused by micrometeorite impacts with Enceladus. This causes a fine mist of tiny particles that scatter and reflect mostly blue light. A similar situation could be happening at Uranus.

The outermost ring of Uranus, discovered just last year, is bright blue, making it only the second known blue ring in the solar system, according to a report this week in the journal Science.

Perhaps not coincidentally, both blue rings are associated with small moons.

'The outer ring of Saturn is blue and has Enceladus right smack at its brightest spot, and Uranus is strikingly similar, with its blue ring right on top of Mab's orbit,' said Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. 'The blue color says that this ring is predominantly submicron-sized material, much smaller than the material in most other rings, which appear red.'