Professor Carl Murray, from the University of London, first spotted the new ring which lies close to the orbit of one of Saturn's smaller moons, Atlas.

The ring, which is about 190 miles (306 kilometres) wide, is interposed between two other rings designated A and F.

"It was while studying the F ring in these images that I discovered the faint ring of material," Murray told the British Association Festival of Science at the University of Exeter in west England.

"My immediate hunch was that it might be associated with the orbit of one of Saturn's moons, and after some calculation I identified Atlas as the prime suspect," he said.

The images were taken after the Cassini-Huygens project, jointly launched by Europe and the United States, went into orbit around Saturn on July 1.

Pictures of the F ring, Saturn's outermost ring, also yielded another surprise -- a possible new moon to add to the planet's present compliment of

The object skirting the outer part of the F ring could either be a permanent moon or a temporary "clump" of debris material, Murray said.

Its diameter is estimated at two to three miles, and it is located about 620 miles from the F ring.

British scientists have designed and built six instruments on Cassini and two on Huygens, the European Space Agency probe carried on the US spacecraft which is due to land on Saturn's largest moon Titan in January.

Cassini-Huygens is the first man-made object to orbit the ringed planet, the sixth planet from the Sun and second in size after Jupiter.

The probe is named after Jean-Dominique Cassini, a 17th century Paris Observatory director who discovered several of Saturn's moons and detected space between its rings, and 17th-century Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens, who first observed Saturn's rings.

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