Asteroids are a pretty bland affair for most astronomers but to their amazement, they have found one with a ring system akin to Saturn.
The asteroid named, Chariklo orbits in a region between Saturn and Uranus and measures a tiny 250 km across. Looking to get a better idea of its exact size and shape, astronomers trained their telescopes on the giant space rock as it passed in front on a distant star in June 2013. As Chariklo performed its eclipse, researchers noticed something odd: The star’s light flickered just a bit immediately before and after Chariklo’s pass. The thicker inner ring is about four miles wide, while the thinner outer ring is a little less than two miles.
Spectroscopic analysis of the starlight also revealed that the rings are composed partially of water ice. There are only four other known ring systems in our solar system; Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. Astronomers aren’t yet sure if Chariklo’s ring system makes it unique among asteroids. In recent decades, more than 10 other objects in its neighbourhood have been searched using a technique similar to Chariklo’s stellar eclipse but have not shown any rings.
Scientists aren’t quite sure what caused the ring system to form but the leading theory is that something smaller slammed into Chariklo which blasted debris into space where some of it was pulled into orbit by Chariklo’s gravity, small as it may be.
Either way, this is a fantastic discovery and we should be sending probe after probe into the nether regions of our star system to explore the complexity of nature in all its glory – High res shots anyone 🙂
Stay Curious – C.Costigan
