Using a few ultracold ions, intense lasers and some electrodes, researchers have built the first programmable quantum computer. The new system, described in a paper to be published in Nature Physics, flexed its versatility by performing 160 randomly chosen processing routines.
Earlier versions of quantum computers have been largely restricted to a narrow window of specific tasks. To be more generally useful, a quantum computer should be programmable, in the same way that a classical computer must be able to run many different programs on a single piece of machinery.
The new study is “a powerful demonstration of the technological advances towards producing a real-world quantum computer,” says quantum physicist Winfried Hensinger of the University of Sussex in Brighton, England.
Researchers led by David Hanneke of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., based their quantum computer on two beryllium ions chilled to just above absolute zero. These ions, trapped by a magnetic field on a gold-plated aluminum chip, formed the quantum bits, or qubits, analogous to the bits in regular computers represented by 0s and 1s. Short laser bursts manipulated the beryllium ions to perform the processing operations, while nearby magnesium ions kept the beryllium ions cool and still.
Hanneke and colleagues programmed the computer to do operations on a single beryllium ion and on both of the beryllium ions together. In the quantum world, a single qubit can represent a mixture of 0 and 1 simultaneously, a state called a superposition. A laser pulse operation could change the composition of the mixture within the qubit, tipping the scales to make the qubit more likely to become a 1 when measured.
Both of the qubits together could be entangled, a situation where the two qubits are intimately linked, and what happens to one seems to affect the fate of the other. Different combinations of one- and two-qubit operations made up various programs. “We put all these pieces together and asked, what can we do with the circuit?” Hanneke says.
Hanneke and colleagues chose 160 programs for the quantum computer to run. “We picked them, quite literally, at random,” Hanneke says. “We really wanted to sample all possible operations.”
The researchers ran each program 900 times. On average, the quantum computer operated accurately 79 percent of the time, the team reported in their paper, which was published online November 15. “Getting this kind of control over a quantum system is really interesting from a physics perspective,” Hanneke says.
Earlier research has estimated that to be useful, a quantum computer must operate accurately 99.99 percent of the time. Hanneke says that with stronger lasers and other refinements, the system’s fidelity may be improved.
Experimental physicist Boris Blinov says that one of the most exciting things about the new study is that the quantum computer may be scaled up. “What’s most impressive and important is that they did it in the way that can be applied to a larger-scale system,” says Blinov, of the University of Washington in Seattle. “The very same techniques they’ve used for two qubits can be applied to much larger systems.”
SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean court Monday found disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk guilty of fraud and handed down a suspended sentence in a case that sent shockwaves throughout the global scientific community.
Hwang, once a scientist with rock-star like status for bringing South Korea to the forefront of stem cell studies, had faced trial on charges of fraud, misusing state funds and violating bioethics laws.
"He was guilty of fabrication," the Seoul court said in a verdict in the trial that stretched more than three years and included painstaking details about the scientific work Hwang and his team had performed at Seoul National University.
The court also said that Hwang illegally diverted a portion of the money he received for research for his personal use.
"But he has shown he has truly repented for his crime," the court said in its verdict. Hwang's supporters, who have packed the court for each hearing, broke into applause when the court sentenced Hwang to two years in jail, suspended for three years.
Prosecutors were seeking a four-year prison term, saying Hwang had set back scientific research and deeply embarrassed the country, which was at one point being groomed into a global center for stem cell studies.
Hwang and his lawyers did not speak to reporters.
Hwang's team was thought to have made two major breakthroughs by cloning stem cells and tailoring them to a specific patient, which raised hopes of generating genetically specific tissue to repair damaged organs or treat diseases such as Alzheimer's.
Stem cells are the body's master cells, giving rise to all the tissues, organs and blood. Embryonic stem cells are considered the most powerful kinds of stem cells, as they have the potential to give rise to any type of tissue.
An investigation team at Seoul National University said in late 2005 that Hwang's team fabricated vital data in two papers on human embryonic stem cells. Hwang resigned his post and the government revoked his stem cell research license.
With major financial backing from his supporters, Hwang went on to form SooAm Biotech Research Foundation in 2006, which specializes in animal cloning and has produced cloned dogs.
Hwang is still regarded with scorn by many in the country but has fostered a small, devoted group of followers.
"Perhaps there is a chance that he might regain trust from people through sincere work. However, the truth has come out on his manipulated research and this has been made clear," said Park Jeong-woo, a professor of bioethics at Catholic University.
More than 30 percent of scientists surveyed expressed concern that human health may be at risk from nanotechnology, while just 20 percent of the public held such fears. Twenty percent of the scientists responding indicated a concern that new forms of nanotechnology pollution may emerge, while only 15 percent of the public thought that might be a problem.
The potential health and environmental consequences of nanotechnology are a source of greater concern to scientists than to the public at large, according to a new study published Sunday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The research, which was funded by the National Science Foundation and conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Arizona State University, included a national telephone survey of American households along with a sampling of 363 leading U.S. nanotechnology scientists and engineers. It found that experts with the most insight into nanotech also have more concerns as to the health and environmental problems that might be associated with the technology.
"Scientists aren't saying there are problems," said Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication and journalism who was lead author on the study. "They're saying, 'we don't know. The research hasn't been done.'"
Big Potential
Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of matter on the smallest scale -- on the level of molecules and atoms.
Just last month, the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to two scientists who discovered the nanotechnology that has made today's tiny hard disk drives possible. Albert Fert of France and Peter Grünberg of Germany won the award for their independent discoveries of giant magnetoresistance (GMR), which has revolutionized the way data is read on hard disk drives by storing information in the form of microscopically small areas magnetized in different directions.
Other applications range from new antimicrobial materials and tiny probes to sample individual cells in human patients to vastly more powerful computers and lasers. Nanotechnology is already part of consumer products including golf clubs, tennis rackets and antimicrobial food storage containers.
Health Fears First
Scientists surveyed in the study were generally optimistic about the potential benefits of nanotechnology, but they expressed significantly more concern about pollution and new health problems related to the technology than members of the public did.
One example of an environmental danger could be the effect of tiny nano particles on natural environments if lab filters don't catch them when liquids are being disposed, Scheufele told TechNewsWorld.
A health concern includes the effects of nano particles whose toxicity is unknown on lab workers who get exposed to them, he added.
More than 30 percent of scientists expressed concern that human health may be at risk from the technology, while just 20 percent of the public held such fears. Twenty percent of the scientists responding indicated a concern that new forms of nanotechnology pollution may emerge, while only 15 percent of the public thought that might be a problem.
The American public, by contrast, is more worried about a potential loss of privacy from tiny new surveillance devices and the loss of more U.S. jobs, according to the research.
Information Disconnect
The bottom line, the researchers say, is that there is a disconnect between the perceptions of those who understand the technology and those of the public in general. Nanotech's emergence only recently on the nation's policy agenda and the media's lack of attention to the technology are two factors behind the disconnect, the researchers said.
"The conversation that should be taking place hasn't happened yet," Scheufele said.
"What needs to happen is really a dialog between scientists and the public and also politics that involves both the scientific and the nonscientific aspects," he explained. "That means science has to participate in a way that's accessible to all audiences."
Different groups in society are looking for different answers about technology, Scheufele added. "There isn't one single public. It's important for us to do careful research about how best to engage each of these groups."
Cultural Differences
Different cultures have varying levels of sensitivity to the introduction of unnatural elements into the natural world, noted Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies.
"In Europe, for example, genetically modified foods are seen as unacceptable," Kay told TechNewsWorld. "In our highly commercial culture, on the other hand, we tend to shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Sometimes we're sorry, but most of the time it works out."
All it would take for a public-relations disaster, however, is for one of the many new technologies to get out of control, Kay added.
"Then the public will say, 'Why didn't you warn us?'" he noted. "I think scientists are aware of that."
Like Alice's Restaurant in the Arlo Guthrie song, the Internet lets you get anything you want -- from views on politics or science and technology or religion to recipes and gossip. Oh, and of course, news.
However, few people do more than skim the surface -- and as they do with newspapers, most people tend to read only what interests them. Add to that the democratization of the power to publish, where anyone with access to the Web can put up a blog on any topic whatsoever, and you have a veritable Tower of Babel.
So, does the Internet make for shallowness of thought? If so, why?
Just a Channel
The Internet is a worldwide distribution channel, and it's based on speed and reach. Nothing shows its value more than when it's used to disseminate information in times of trouble, such as when Iranians put videos of post-election riots on the Web.
At the same time, nothing shows up its capability to give the most mean-spirited the ability to put forth their views as white-power blogs, for example -- or the case of Lori Drew, an adult woman living in Dardenne Prairie, Mo., whose cyberbullying of 13-year-old neighbor Megan Meier led the teenager to hang herself. Drew, by the way, was charged with misdemeanors -- accessing computers without authorization -- and convicted, only to have the convictions thrown out by a federal judge.
So, the Internet is a mixed blessing, and that raises the next point: Should we censor the Internet so that only wholesome material is put out there? If we do, who should be the censors, and who will watch them?
Plato, never a fan of democracy, advocated philosopher kings and control of the arts to shape the minds of children in the way the state preferred. To paraphrase his point of view, the public had, in essence, the thinking ability of comatose gnats and needed the guidance of properly trained people. That view, of course, prompts another question: Who shall decide what training is proper?
It's All in Your Head
Let us assume, for the moment, that we have no right to shut off the myriad of voices erupting onto the Internet, as that would mean restricting freedom of speech. What is it, then, that leads people to read shallowly, when they have so much information at their fingertips?
One possible explanation is our reading habits. As previously noted, people will read what interests them most, and there's little anyone can do to change that.
Information overload is another factor. We have to limit how much information we take in so that we won't get overwhelmed. The Web serves up so much information that it leaves readers little time for anything else, and often people tend to scan lots of Web sites or subscribe to several RSS feeds to assuage their hunger for news that interests them. Think of it as the reader's equivalent to a junk-food addiction.
That addiction, and the plethora of information available on any one topic, leaves little time for anything else. "Somebody who reads only newspapers and, at best, books of contemporary authors, looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses," Albert Einstein wrote in a note on classic literature for the Jungkaufmann, a monthly publication, in 1952. "He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else."
That tendency is strengthened by the demands of advanced industrial societies. In such societies, the productive apparatus tends to become totalitarian to the extent to which it determines both socially needed occupations, skills and attitudes, and also individual needs and aspirations, Herbert Marcuse said in his book, One-Dimensional Man.
Critical Thinking
"Mass production and mass distribution claim the entire individual, and industrial psychology has long since ceased to be confined to the factory," Marcuse says. People's outlooks tend to be shaped by their society and they want to fit in, to belong. Could that be why no one has questioned IBM's (NYSE: IBM) and Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC) projects to harness unused computing power in the public's computers for public projects?
Last year, IBM launched the World Community Grid, which taps the computing power of the public. Last month, Intel unveiled a software program that lets Facebook users devote their spare computer processing power to research diseases or climate change.
Who benefits from these projects? Well, IBM and Intel get lots of free publicity. They possibly also get huge tax writeoffs. What do the members of the public, whose computers are being used and who pay for the electricity to power the computers get? Higher electric bills, probably, and a vague feeling of satisfaction.
Why didn't anyone ask why the blue-chip companies that came up with the projects didn't dedicate some of their own spare processing power for these worthwhile causes?
It could be because of the tyranny imposed by advanced industrial cultures that Marcuse speaks of. In advanced industrial cultures, the productive apparatus and the goods and services it offers impose their own social system on the public, Marcuse contends. Entertainment, transportation and means of communication "carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers more or less pleasantly to the producers and through the latter to the whole."
Eventually, any concept that cannot be accounted for through empirical observation in terms of operations or behavior will be eradicated, Marcuse says. News is empirical observation of a sort, even though it may be misreported due to the observer's prejudices and bias, so it takes precedence over uncomfortable modes of thought that may lead to digging deeper into a question or an issue.
So, can we change people's reading habits so they can think critically about what they read on the Internet? Perhaps. Should we do so? Only if we consider ourselves appointed the guardians of the public weal. The technical term for that is "hubris."
Mars has appparently undergone a recent Ice Age, scientists say.
Researchers drew the conclusion based on the distribution of ice at and slightly below ground level near the Red Planet’s polar regions.
Two hypotheses have been suggested to explain this ice: that it fell there as precipitation during recent ice ages, or that water vapor spread through the surface rocks, gravel and soil.
To find out which alternative was correct, Samuel C. Schon of Brown University in Rhode Island and colleagues used data from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, an imaging instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.
The group examined the structure of exposed subsurface Martian terrain. The researchers noticed that the terrain features layered deposits many meters (yards) thick that stretch over many hundreds of meters.
They suggest that climate variations are most likely the source of this stratification. The layers probably formed as dust, ice, and snow were deposited on the ground during recent ice ages, which occurred during periods when Mars’s axis of rotation was more tilted than usual, the scientists argued.
Vapor diffusion would be unlikely to result in the layered structure, they added. They note that the observations also suggest that significant subsurface ice may remain in the 30-50 degrees mid-latitude regions.
The findings were published Aug. 6 online in the research journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Scientists say they have managed to make plastics through “bio-engineering” rather than through the use of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
The findings are published in two papers in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering to mark the journal’s 50th anniversary.
Polymers are molecules found in everyday life in the form of plastics and rubbers. The researchers, from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Korean chemical company LG Chem, focused their research on polylactic acid, a biologically-based polymer.
“The polyesters and other polymers we use everyday are mostly derived from fossil oils made through the refinery or chemical process,” said Institute researcher Sang Yup Lee. Polylactic acid “is considered a good alternative to petroleum-based plastics as it is both biodegradable and has a low toxicity to humans.”
Until now the polymer had been produced in a complex, costly two-step chemical process, he added. Lee’s team developed a one-stage process in which engineered E. coli bacteria produced polylactic acid and associated polymers through fermentation, a metabolic process.
“This means that a developed E. coli strain is now capable of efficiently producing unnatural polymers, through a one-step fermentation process,” he said.
“Global warming and other environmental problems are urging us to develop sustainable processes based on renewable resources,” added Lee. “This new strategy should be generally useful for developing other engineered organisms capable of producing various unnatural polymers by direct fermentation from renewable resources.”
Astronomers have found a giant galaxy surrounding what they describe as the oldest and most distant black hole known.
The galaxy is as large as the Milky Way galaxy and harbors a “supermassive,” or giant, black hole estimated to weigh the equivalent of at least a billion Suns.
A black hole is an object so compact that its gravity drags in anything that passes too close by, including light rays. Some black holes are formed from burned-out stars, but others are too large to be explained in this way and their origin is somewhat mysterious.
The newfound black hole and galaxy are measured as lying 12.8 billion light years from Earth. Since a light-year is the distance light travels in a year, that would mean that from Earth we see the galaxy as it was that many billion years ago.
It’s “surprising that such a giant galaxy existed when the Universe was only one sixteenth of its present age, and that it hosted a black hole one billion times more massive than the Sun. The galaxy and black hole must have formed very rapidly in the early universe,” said University of Hawaii astronomer Tomotsugu Goto, one of the researchers.
The finding is considered important in unlocking the secret of how galaxies evolved together with the supermassive black holes that most of them contain at their cores.
Until now, studying black-hole-containing host galaxies in the distant universe has been extremely difficult because the blinding bright light from near the black hole makes it harder to see the already faint light from the host galaxy.
Unlike smaller black holes, which form when a large star dies, the origin of supermassive black holes remains an unsolved problem. A currently popular model requires several mid-sized black holes to merge to form the giant black hole.
The newfound galaxy provides a reservoir of such intermediate black holes, according to Goto and colleagues. After forming, supermassive black holes often continue to grow because their gravity draws in matter from surrounding objects. The energy released in this process accounts for the bright light that these black holes produce.
To see the supermassive black hole, the team of scientists used new camera equipment installed in the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and developed by Satoshi Miyazaki of the National Astronomy Observatory of Japan and colleagues.
“We have witnessed a supermassive black hole and its host galaxy forming together. This discovery has opened a new window for investigating galaxy-black hole co-evolution at the dawn of the universe,” said Yousuke Utsumi, also of the National Astronomy Observatory.
A woman looks familiar, but you can’t remember her name or where you met her. New research suggests the memory exists – you simply can’t retrieve it.
Using brain imaging, neuroscientists at the University of California, Irvine found that a person’s brain activity while remembering an event is very similar to when it was first experienced, even if specifics can’t be recalled.
“If the details are still there, hopefully we can find a way to access them,” said Jeff Johnson, a postdoctoral researcher at the university and lead author of the study, appearing Sept. 10 in the scientific journal Neuron.
“By understanding how this works in young, healthy adults, we can potential ly gain insight into situations where our memories fail more noticeably, such as when we get older,” he said. “It also might shed light on the fate of vivid memories of traumatic events that we may want to forget.”
Johnson and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging, a brain scanning technique, to study the brain activity of students.
The students were shown words and asked to perform various tasks: imagine how an artist would draw the object named by the word, think about how the object is used, or pronounce the word backward in their minds. The scanner captured images of their brain activity during these exercises.
About 20 minutes later, the students viewed the words a second time and were asked to remember any details linked to them. Again, brain activity was recorded.
Utilizing a mathematical method called pattern analysis, the scientists associated the different tasks with distinct patterns of brain activity. When a student had a strong recollection of a word from a particular task, the pattern was very similar to the one generated during the task. When recollection was weak or nonexistent, the pattern was not as prominent but still recognizable as belonging to that particular task, the researchers said.
“The pattern analyzer could accurately identify tasks based on the patterns generated, regardless of whether the subject remembered specific details,” Johnson said. “This tells us the brain knew something about what had occurred, even though the subject was not aware of the information.”
Scientists at a new research institute are working to find out how life might evolve using chemicals not found in Earth-based life forms.
They’re studying how organisms might employ alternative solvents—that is, other liquids that could play the role that water does in familiar life forms.
The University of Vienna established the research group Alternative Solvents as a Basis for Life Supporting Zones in (Exo-)Planetary Systems last May under the leadership of astronomer Maria Firneis. Research by the group was presented at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany on Sept. 18.
Traditionally, planets that might sustain life are sought in “habitable zone,” the regions around stars in which Earth-like planets with carbon dioxide, water vapour and nitrogen atmospheres could maintain liquid water on their surfaces.
Scientists have been seeking chemical signatures produced by extraterrestrial life with metabolisms resembling the terrestrial ones, where the building blocks of life, amino acids, are based on carbon and oxygen dissolved in water.
But “it cannot be ruled out that life forms have evolved somewhere that neither rely on water nor on a carbon- and oxygen-based metabolism,” said research group member Johannes Leitner. “It is time to make a radical change in our present ‘geocentric’ mindset.”
A life-supporting solvent must remain liquid over a large temperature range. Water is liquid between 0 and 100 degrees Celsius, but some other solvents are liquid over more than 200 degrees. Such a solvent would allow an ocean on a planet closer to the central star, researchers say.
The reverse scenario is also possible – a liquid ocean of ammonia could exist much further from a star. Furthermore, sulphuric acid can be found within the cloud layers of Venus and lakes of methane or ethane cover parts of the surface of the Saturnian moon Titan.
The research group, with international collaborators, plans to study the properties of a range of solvents other than water, including their abundance in space, thermal and biochemical characteristics as well as their ability to support the origin and evolution of life-supporting metabolisms. Although known most exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, are composed of gas, “it is a matter of time until smaller, Earth-size exoplanets are discovered,” said Leitner.
Birth control pills may alter women’s abilities to choose, compete for and retain mates, a new report suggests.
The paper published online on Oct. 7 in the research journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution reviews emerging evidence that oral contraceptives affect these activities by distorting natural hormonal cycles.
Women are fertile briefly during their menstrual cycle, just before ovulation. Studies have found that both sexes’ partner preferences vary according to predictable hormonal fluctuations associated with this cycle. Ovulating women prefer more masculine, dominant and competitive males, as well as males more genetically unlike themselves. Meanwhile men, some studies suggest, detect women’s fertility status, preferring ovulating women in situations where they can compare different women’s attractiveness.
Contraceptive pills alter the hormonal fluctuations associated menstrual cycles and essentially mimic the more steady hormonal conditions associated with pregnancy, according to researchers. “Little effort has been invested in understanding the consequences” of this, said study author Alexandra Alvergne of the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield, U.K.
Alverne and colleague Virpi Lumma reviewed recent studies suggesting use of the pill disrupts women’s variation in mate preferences across their menstrual cycle. The authors speculated that the use of the pill may also influence a woman’s ability to attract a mate by reducing attractiveness to men.
Interesting, women on the pill don’t show the ovulation-specific attraction to genetically unlike partners, said Lummaa. “The ultimate outstanding evolutionary question concerns whether the use of oral contraceptives when making mating decisions can have long-term consequences on the ability of couples to reproduce.”
Taken together, a growing number of studies suggest the pill is likely to affect mating decisions and thus reproduction, she added. “If this is the case, pill use will have implications for both current and future generations, and we hope that our review will stimulate further research.”
Moon, like a big sponge, absorbs electrically charged particles from the Sun, which in turn combine with oxygen in some lunar dust to make water, scientists say.
They add that the finding—made using the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter—also suggests a new way to make images of the Moon and other airless Solar System bodies.
Researchers reported only last month that the moon has either water or a similar molecule, called hydroxyl.
The lunar surface is a loose collection of irregular dust grains, called regolith. Incoming particles are probably trapped in the spaces between the grains and absorbed, according to scientists.
When this happens to protons—electrically charged particles that lie at the cores of atoms—the protons are expected to combine with the oxygen in the regolith to produce hydroxyl and water, the investigators explain.
The research group, Stas Barabash of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and colleagues, reported the findings in a paper to be published in the journal Planetary and Space Science.
A glowing tooth regenerated in an adult mouse mouth. (Image courtesy Takashi Tsuji, PhD., Tokyo University of Science, Organ Technologies Inc.) The work could serve as a prelude to other organ replacements using a similar technique, they proposed.
Researchers say they have engineered the growth of fully functional replacement teeth in mice, with the growth occurring in the tooth’s proper place.
Technology exists to develop some tissues in the lab that can be transplanted into animals. But Etsuko Ikeda of Tokyo-based Organ Technologies Inc. and Tokyo University of Science in Chiba, Japan, and colleagues explored ways to grow an organ in place.
The researchers developed a bioengineered tooth germ, a seed-like tissue containing the cells and genetic instructions necessary to form a tooth. They then transplanted the germ into the jawbones of mice.
The germs regularly grew into replacement teeth, the investigators said. Tracking gene activity in the transplanted germ with a fluorescent glowing protein, the researchers found that genes normally activated in tooth development were also active during the engineered replacement’s growth.
The engineered tooth’s hardness was comparable to that of natural teeth, and nerve fibers could grow throughout and respond to pain stimulation, they also found. The results are reported in this week’s early online edition of the research journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We propose this technology as a model for future organ replacement therapies,” the researchers wrote.
Observations from a space telescope have revealed the largest-known planetary ring in the Solar System, astronomers report.The subtle, newfound ring surrounds the gaseous planet, but much further out than its familiar, more visible rings, scientists said; if it were were visible from Earth, the ring’s full circle would appear to be twice the size of the our Moon.
The ring is associated with Saturn’s distant moon Phoebe, which orbits the giant planet about 13 million kilometres (8 million miles) away. That is roughly 200 times Saturn’s radius, or distance from its center to its surface.
Until now, the largest-known planetary rings were Jupiter’s gossamer rings and Saturn’s E ring — sheets of dust that extend to about 5 to 10 times the radius of their respective planets.
The new findings, made using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, are described in the Oct. 8 issue of the research journal Nature. Astronomers Anne Verbiscer of the University of Virginia and colleagues, who reported the find, also presented simulations showing how dust in the ring could come from repeated impacts of objects striking Phoebe.
The faint but enormous ring may also explain a longstanding mystery: the two-tone coloration of another Saturnian moon, Iapetus, Verbiscer and colleagues proposed. One side of Iapetus is darker than the other, leading to suggestions that the front face might be coated with dust spiralling in from Saturn’s darker outer moons, including Phoebe.
Verbiscer and colleagues calculate that, over the history of the Solar System, material from the ring could have supplied Iapetus’s front face with a blanket of dark dust a few metres (yards) thick.