http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/first-ever-asteroid-rings-knocks-astronomers-loop-n62266
First-Ever Asteroid With Rings Knocks Astronomers for a Loop
By Alan Boyle
When astronomers got a rare look at an asteroid passing in front of a distant star last year, they discovered something rarer still: the first asteroid with rings.
Telltale variations in light show that the space rock, known as Chariklo, has two dense, narrow rings. That makes it only the fifth ringed world known to exist in the solar system, after Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
"We weren't looking for a ring and didn't think small bodies like Chariklo had them at all, so the discovery — and the amazing amount of detail we saw in the system — came as a complete surprise!" Felipe Braga-Ribas of Brazil's Observatorio Nacional/MCTI said in a news release announcing the find.
Braga-Ribas planned the campaign to observe Chariklo, and he's also the lead author of a paper on the asteroid's rings published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
(http://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/13/55/53/83/14032610.jpg)
An artist's conception shows the icy asteroid Chariklo and its rings, which are 4 miles and 2 miles (7 kilometers and 3 kilometers) wide and separated by a 6-mile-wide (9-kilometer-wide) gap. The ring system extends about 500 miles (810 kilometers) in diameter.
Chariklo, a 160-mile-wide (258-kilometer-wide) world named after a nymph in Greek mythology, orbits between Saturn and Uranus and is the largest of a class of objects known as Centaurs. Astronomers calculated that Chariklo would eclipse the star UCAC4 248-108672 on June 3, 2013, as seen from South America. So they flocked to several southern locations to catch the show.
Braga-Ribas and his colleagues recorded the dip in starlight as the asteroid passed over — as well as two additional dips, a few seconds before and again a few seconds after the main event. That's what tipped them off about the rings.
Astronomers suggest that the rings (nicknamed Oiapoque and Chu', after rivers in Brazil) are made up of debris left over from a cosmic collision (like the one thought to have given rise to Earth's moon). The fact that the rings are so sharply confined suggests that "shepherd moons" may be keeping them in line.
"It's likely that Chariklo has at least one small moon still waiting to be discovered," Braga-Ribas said.
Braga-Ribas is among 64 authors of the Nature paper, titled "A Ring System Detected Around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo."
Correction for 5:55 p.m. ET March 26: An earlier version of this report
misstated the metric conversion for Chariklo's diameter.
First published March 26 2014, 11:02 AM
Now that is very interesting, sky, good find! Altho I do wonder how a planetoid(asteriod) that small has enough gravitational field to hold a set of rings in place...
must be incredibly dense material...
seeker
seeker
i can only guess
and this is my guess:
it is located in the only part of the known universe to have planets with rings
That makes it only the fifth ringed world known to exist in the solar system, after Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
orbits between Saturn and Uranus
all the ringed stuff is located together
DAH
bhahahahahahahahahah
bet they find some more
probably way to logical, huh ;)
:o
Quote from: the seeker on March 27, 2014, 12:05:47 AM
must be incredibly dense material...
It would have to be if their theory of ring gravity is correct. Maybe star core material
Guess I will have to post a claim on it :D
MWAHAHAHAHA
Quote from: zorgon on March 27, 2014, 04:29:48 AM
It would have to be if their theory of ring gravity is correct. Maybe star core material
Guess I will have to post a claim on it :D
MWAHAHAHAHA
When they publish some maps, I'll make you some lot maps so you can pick your area! ;D