![]() ![]() "The lifetime of dust trapped in the ring is only about 100,000 years, so it does not provide much of a clue to the formation of the solar system," Jones said. ![]() While the rings themselves are likely long-lived structures, the individual pieces that comprise them don't stick around for millions of years. (Resonant orbits are those whose periods are related by a ratio of two small integers, such as 2 and 3 such an orbital relationship often magnifies the gravitational influence two celestial bodies exert on each other.) Such dust rings have arisen from the trapping of interplanetary dust into orbits resonant with those of Venus and Earth. One of these steps is interior to Venus' orbit, while the other lies outside the planet's path around the sun, researchers said. But, in something of a surprise, it looks significantly different than the ring near Earth's orbit, featuring two distinct "steplike" components. The STEREO images did indeed reveal a dust ring. They modeled the way a ring near Venus should scatter light, then looked for the feature in images captured by NASA's twin STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) probes, which have been studying the sun since launching in late 2006. A diagram showing the viewing angle that allowed NASA's STEREO-A probe to detect a giant dust ring near the orbit of Venus.
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