The Rings of Rhea; or, the mini-Lord-of-the-Rings

~The Cassini space probe operated by NASA is still orbiting Saturn, years after dropping the Huygens lander to the surface of Titan. Almost every day seems to bring new and exciting scientific findings about Saturn at the Cassini website. One of the more interesting recent discoveries has been the detection of rings around Rhea, Saturn's second-largest satellite (diameter: ~950 miles) after Titan. This is the first time that rings have been detected around what is not only a satellite, but a rocky object.

^ Artist's conception of Rhea, with the debris size exaggerated so you can see the ring.

The rings were detected during a flyby of Rhea by Cassini, which detected a sharp drop in the usual rain of electrons from Saturn as it passed the satellite in November 2005. Another, more recent flyby on the other side of Rhea showed the same result, proving that there is some kind of debris field orbiting the satellite. A similar method was used to detect the rings of Uranus in 1977.

Like the atmosphere of Enceladus and the ice fields of Iapetus, the rings of Rhea are merely the latest findings from Cassini. Who knows what else remains to be discovered about the Lord of the Rings and its ever-growing family of moons?