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Show oo THIN RING SEEN flROUi PLANET! CAMBRrDGB, Mass., Feb. lti The! inner ring of the planet Saturn, known to astronomers as the "crepe ring " on account of the fact that It Is much less brilliant than the others, has a thickness of 2000 miles, while tho other oth-er rings are very much thinner, according ac-cording to observations made by Professor Pro-fessor William H Pickering of Harvard Har-vard at the Harvard Astronomical station sta-tion -it Mandcvllle, Jamaica. The thickness of the rings of Saturn la a mutter which has long attracted the interest of astronomers. Thisi planet Is surrounded by what appears! through a small telescope lo be a sin- gl. flat ring of exceeding thinnest. Through a larger telescope this is seen to be ln reality threo concentric rings Every sixteen years or so the Berth passes through the plane of these I links, which are then in s position edgewise to the Earth. So thin are they that for a while they disappear, and cannot he seen until the Earth' moves Out of their plane. This phe- i non occurred on November 7 and' will occur again on February 21 and' August 3 of this year, after which there will be no opportunity of observ.j lng it again for sixteen yenrs Professor Pickering reports that he' observed the rings Jutt before and after af-ter the November transit, and found ' the inner ring to be thicker than the J others, estimating It to be 2000 miles thick. He also reports that In the outer edge of the second ring the me-: teors seem to be nioi'o concentrated than elsewhere. Astronomers believe these rVi to be composed of Innumerable small meteors revolving In dense swarms about the middle portions of the I planet. |