Artículos de revistas
A ring system detected around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo
Fecha
2014-04-03Registro en:
Nature. London: Nature Publishing Group, v. 508, n. 7494, p. 72-+, 2014.
0028-0836
10.1038/nature13155
WOS:000333609900044
Autor
MCTI
Univ Paris 06
CSIC
Max Planck Inst Solar Syst Res
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)
CNRS
Univ Liege
Appalachian State Univ
Pontificia Univ Catolica Chile
Univ Estadual Ponta Grossa
FPTI BR
Univ Estadual Oeste Parana
Ministerio Educ Provincia Cordoba
Univ Nacl Cordoba
Univ Copenhagen
Geol Museum
Inst Fis & Quim
Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
DICYT
Univ Republica
Observatorio El Catalejo
San Pedro Atacama Celestial Explorat
CASLEO
San Juan Natl Univ
Consejo Formac Educ
Chinese Acad Sci
Max Planck Inst Astron
Consejo Nacl Invest Cient & Tecn
Univ Antofagasta
Univ St Andrews
Univ N Carolina
Institución
Resumen
Hitherto, rings have been found exclusively around the four giant planets in the Solar System(1). Rings are natural laboratories in which to study dynamical processes analogous to those that take place during the formation of planetary systems and galaxies. Their presence also tells us about the origin and evolution of the body they encircle. Here we report observations of a multichord stellar occultation that revealed the presence of a ring system around (10199) Chariklo, which is a Centaur-that is, one of a class of small objects orbiting primarily between Jupiter and Neptune-with an equivalent radius of 124 +/- 9 kilometres (ref. 2). There are two dense rings, with respective widths of about 7 and 3 kilometres, optical depths of 0.4 and 0.06, and orbital radii of 391 and 405 kilometres. The present orientation of the ring is consistent with an edge-on geometry in 2008, which provides a simple explanation for the dimming(3) of the Chariklo system between 1997 and 2008, and for the gradual disappearance of ice and other absorption features in its spectrum over the same period(4,5). This implies that the rings are partly composed of water ice. They may be the remnants of a debris disk, possibly confined by embedded, kilometre-sized satellites.