First asteroid with ‘Saturn-like’ rings observed » Science News

The object is located between the orbits of Saturn and Neptune.

There are millions of objects in space and it is often necessary to travel to unimaginable distances to detect them, but sometimes a powerful telescope is enough to spot them and analyze their properties. And this is what happened in 2013, they discovered it Chariklo, which is an asteroid called “the Centaur” with rings similar to Saturn. The James Webb Space Telescope recently observed Curious orbnoting the formation of rings from the ice. Spectra from ground-based telescopes hinted at their presence, but the remarkable quality of the web spectrum allowed the clear imprint of crystalline ice to be detected for the first time.explained Noemi Pinilla-Alonso, planetary astronomer at NASA.

It is the smallest known body with its own rings and is not a planet. Despite this, it is the largest known centaur, “only” 51 times smaller than Earth, and is found among It orbits between Saturn and NeptuneIn short, very far from our eyes and above all from the Sun. While checking, the experts discovered some drops in the body’s sheen curve in line with the two rings. The searches certainly did not end here and in the future there will be more: “We’ll also explore ring thicknesses, ring particle sizes and colors, and much moreContinues Pinilla Alonso. “Our hope is to gain new insights into why this small body has rings, and perhaps to discover new, thinner rings. “

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Source:

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-chariklo-water-ice