WASHINGTON: Planetary rings have been famous for looping about Saturn and other gas giants for quite some time, but recently, scientists have found rings in surprising new places. In 2011, rings were noted to surround a minor body in the outer solar system, and now a new location – Chiron – appears to possess rings as well.
Chiron, as well as the 2011 discovery subject named Chariklo, is a centaur – an asteroid-comet hybrid that follows an orbital path around the Sun falling between Jupiter and Pluto. The presence of rings orbiting centaurs comes as a surprise to scientists who had believed centaurs to be dormant objects.
“It’s interesting, because Chiron is a centaur — part of that middle section of the solar system, between Jupiter and Pluto, where we originally weren’t thinking things would be active, but it’s turning out things are quite active,” said Amanda Bosh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Chiron has been an object of interest in the past for its comet-like behavior, which helped to clue scientists in to the fact that centaurs are not just asteroids by nature. Scientists have noted brightening events on Chiron, believed to be jets of vapor shot skyward from melting ice on Chiron’s surface.
As noted in a Discovery News report, Chariklo’s rings were discovered when it passed between a bright star and Earth’s observatories, an optical event called a stellar occultation — basically revealing itself in silhouette. Thankfully for scientists, Chiron has now also provided such an image.
The MIT team has been studying data collected by NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, captured when Chiron passed in front of a star.
“There’s an aspect of serendipity to these observations,” said Bosh. “We need a certain amount of luck, waiting for Chiron to pass in front of a star that is bright enough. Chiron itself is small enough that the event is very short; if you blink, you might miss it.”
The images captured during Chiron’s occultation clearly revealed symmetrical features, which are most likely two rings. Other possibilities for the nature of these features include a debris shell surrounding the object and emissions from more vapor jets.
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