A team of researchers from Brazil and Germany discovered the rings around the asteroid Chariklo, which orbits the Sun between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, and which are only about 250 kilometers in diameter
A fascinating astronomical discovery published in Nature: for the first time, scientists discovered an asteroid surrounded by rings similar to the giant planets.
The most famous rings are of course Saturn's, but much thinner (and less prominent) rings also exist around Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. However, no one thought that they could also exist around a small celestial body like an asteroid.
A team of researchers from Brazil and Germany discovered the rings around the asteroid Chariklo (Chariklo) orbiting the Sun in an orbit that passes between Saturn and Uranus. It is a relatively small asteroid, about 250 km, but last year researchers were lucky with it. Observing from a telescope in Chile, they photographed it passing in front of a star, so that the light behind it made it possible to distinguish rings that had not been seen before. The two rings are relatively narrow: the length of one is about three kilometers, and the other - seven kilometers. The distance between them is only nine km.
It is estimated that, like the rings of the large planets, these too were formed from dust and water vapor, and according to the researchers, it is possible that the interactions with small moons of the planets are what maintain the annular orbit of these particles. According to them, it is possible that the material in the rings will one day coalesce into a single mass, and itself form a tiny moon around its asteroid. It is even possible that this is how the moons in the solar system were formed.
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Fountain
Good question - on the website http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/asteroid-chariklo-s-rings-surprise-astronomers-1.2587266
Write below the picture:
This artist's impression shows how the rings might look from close to the surface of Chariklo. They are 1,000 times closer than the moon is to Earth, but are each just a few kilometers wide. (Nick Risinger/L. Calçada/ESO)
An illustration indeed
Is the picture an illustration? It is not written
Anonymous user
It is the largest medium-sized asteroid among the Ceres asteroids, its diameter is close to 1000 km and it is considered a dwarf planet. Most of the asteroids are tens of kilometers in diameter or even less and have no numerical shape. The best definition for them is flying mountains.
250 km is small for an asteroid?