Possible rings around minor planet Chiron

Possible rings around minor planet Chiron

by Deborah Byrd in » Science Wire, Space

Chiron is the second minor planet and the second centaur – orbiting beyond Jupiter in the outer solar system – suspected to have a ring system.

We started with one ringed planet, Saturn. Then, as technology improved and spacecraft began venturing out into the solar system, scientists discovered that rings also encircle Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. And a year ago the minor planet Chariklo – a peculiar small, rocky body orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, possessing qualities of both asteroids and comets – was discovered to have rings. Now MIT scientists say that a second minor planet – called Chiron – may have rings. They announced their results this week (March 16, 2015) and published them in the journal Icarus.

If not rings, these scientists say, then Chiron might have jets, or a shell of dust. That would be interesting, too.

Both Chariklo and Chiron belong to a relatively new class of objects in our solar system called centaurs. They orbit the sun beyond the orbit of the fifth planet, Jupiter. A century ago, scientists didn’t know of objects in this region of space. Most asteroids, after all, orbit closer in, between the orbits of Jupiter and the fourth planet, Mars. Astronomers found the first centaur (Hidalgo) in 1920. Astronomers didn’t realize there would be more objects in this part of space until they found Chiron in 1977. Now Chariklo is the largest confirmed centaur at 160 miles (260 km) in diameter. Chariklo is as big as a mid-sized main-belt asteroid.

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