A depiction by an artist of the small, frigid body Chiron, which journeys around the sun between Saturn and Uranus and could be forming its own band structure.(Image credit: Observatório Nacional/MCTI/Chrystian Pereira)
In a cosmos where shifts typically play out across vast stretches of time, stargazers have been granted an exclusive vantage point to observe a diminutive, frosty object beyond Saturn construct a completely new arrangement of rings in real time.
A team of astronomers situated in Brazil have discovered that the zones of substance circling around (2060) Chiron, an object of 125 miles in breadth (200 kilometers across) which orbits the sun in the region between Saturn and Uranus, are recently formed and are still evolving. The conclusions imply that the environment surrounding Chiron is in a shifting state, existing somewhere between a turbulent mass of residue and a completely developed ring formation, granting researchers a unique glimpse of ring creation as it happens, an event never before directly observed.
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Chiron is now among the asteroid Chariklo and dwarf planets Haumea and Quaoar as one of just four small bodies in our solar system verified to possess rings, though it may possess the most active rings of them all.
Chiron’s fluctuating setting, as described in a report issued on Oct. 14 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, might allow scientists to gain insight into how diminutive icy objects, together with giant planets such as Saturn and Uranus, built their renowned rings billions of years ago.
Rings in the making
Constructed from stone, frozen water, and organic matter, Chiron is part of a peculiar assembly of bodies categorized as centaurs, which journey the area between Jupiter and Neptune and act in certain ways like asteroids and in some ways like comets. Chiron journeys around the sun one time every 50 Earth years.
From the time it was discovered in 1977, astronomers have noticed it occasionally grow brighter and even produce a dim tail, indicating that it sometimes emits gas and particles into space.
In September 2023, when Chiron passed briefly in front of a faraway star from the vantage point of Earth, the Pico dos Dias Observatory in Brazil spotted minuscule, repeating reductions in the star’s brightness. When the team correlated this data with related occurrences logged in 2011, 2018, and 2022, they determined that the three unique, compact rings — positioned at a span of roughly 170 to 270 miles (270 to 430 km) from Chiron’s center — had stayed stable for over a decade.
Artistic representation of an active centaur like Chiron. The different colors in the coma indicate varying compositions of gas, ice, and dust.
Within the data from 2023, the team also noticed a new disk-resembling construction extending from roughly 120 miles up to 500 miles (200-800 km) surrounding Chiron that had not been visible in prior information. The broader, dispersed disk most likely took shape solely within the past ten years, possibly from a collision or eruption which launched new material into orbit, Pereira mentioned.
Intriguingly, the team also detected a dim, external characteristic nearly 870 miles (1,400 km) from Chiron — considerably beyond what is recognized as the Roche limit, the boundary where ring substance should gather into a moon rather than stay as residue, the new study highlights.
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“This marks the initial occasion we’ve identified any indication of substance in that zone,” Pereira reported to Live Science, adding that enhanced observation is needed to affirm it. “Beyond that boundary, particles composing a ring should instinctively start to merge into a satellite — yet something appears to be impeding this from occurring.”
The scientists aren’t positive on the cause of Chiron’s odd configuration. One likelihood is that unstable ices underneath its crust discharged in a comet-resembling eruption, projecting dust and ice that later arranged themselves into orbit. Another possibility is that a small satellite shattered, dispersing segments that extended along Chiron’s equator, as stated in the new analysis.
The latter theory might also shed light on Chiron’s gradual increase in brightness throughout the prior decade, which is difficult to clarify solely via cometary activity, Pereira stated.
Other specialists suggest the conclusions pose novel queries regarding the ability of rings enveloping small bodies to endure across extended stretches.
“It could be the case that an element is contributing energy to these particles, permitting them to persist past the limit without merging,” Keighley Rockcliffe, a researcher holding a postdoctoral position at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center situated in Maryland who was not involved in the new report, communicated to Live Science through electronic mail.
It may additionally be that the ring exists as a very sparse structure or that it simply hasn’t been around for an adequate duration to merge, Rockcliffe noted. “It might be that it has only recently come into existence and hasn’t yet managed to give rise to a small centaur-relative.”
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To verify whether Chiron’s rings are truly evolving, and not merely appearing differently as a result of our evolving vantage point, astronomers aspire to capture additional occurrences in which Chiron travels in front of remote stars. Such occurrences, when captured via high-speed cameras located at observatories spanning multiple continents, serve as the singular direct method to ascertain if the disk’s substance is undergoing a shift in opacity, breadth, or position — signals that, in accordance to Pereira, would unveil the dust and ice undergoing dynamic redistribution, providing direct validation of continuous evolution.
“The ideal scenario to satisfy our curiosity, however, would be a space mission dedicated to in-situ observation of this intriguing system,” Pereira said.
Sharmila KuthunurSocial Links NavigationLive Science contributor
Sharmila Kuthunur functions as a freelance space journalist residing in Bengaluru, India. Her work has similarly appeared in Scientific American, Science, Astronomy and Space.com, among other publications. She possesses a master’s degree in journalism from Northeastern University located in Boston. Keep up with her on BlueSky @skuthunur.bsky.social
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