WASHINGTON: The one thing that common among Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter and Uranus is that they all have rings. The fifth object in the solar system with rings is Cahrikio- a centaur.A centaur is a hybrid of comets and asteroids.
Now, a new study revealed that another centaur has rings as well and is the sixth object in the solar system with rings. Centaur Chiron also has rings according to MIT.
Amanda Bosh, a lecturer in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences said that, “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.”
To fully observe Chiron, the researchers charted a possible time when Chiron might pass in front of a bright star again. Based on their chart, the team determined that the time they were waiting for was November 29, 2011.
At the said time, they used NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility, on Mauna Kea as well as the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, at Haleakala to get a good look of Chiron. Luckily, the team was able to capture the coveted moment as the team watched it from an MIT lab. The event only lasted for few minutes.
As the group analyze the images of Chiron, they found sharp features at the beginning and end of the shadow that would not be expected if it were just a simple body. They said the shadow was 185 miles on either side of Chiron, just like a ring surrounding it.
The researchers added that the features of Chiron was the same with the description of James Elliot, then a professor of planetary astronomy and physics at MIT, in 1993 and 1994.
The researchers agreed that it could be a symmetrical jets of gas and dust or a ring.
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