A photo from open sources
Astronomers have recorded the fact of entry into the Solar a large asteroid system around which rings are fixed, like Saturn. An object with a diameter of more than 200 km from the Earth is very long away. This event in itself is an ordinary event, but Having carefully studied the collected data, astronomers have discovered a very rare occurrence: an asteroid has rings similar to rings Saturn. Further and more thorough asteroid observations (10199) Chariklo (38628 Chariklo) revealed that this heavenly bodies there are two sufficiently dense and narrow rings, which makes this an asteroid the fifth object of the solar system with rings, along with Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
“We believed that such small space objects as asteroid Hariklo, basically there can be no rings, therefore, we did not even look for them. Randomly made discovery and further study of the asteroid, which gave us more details, became a complete surprise for us “- says Felipe Braga-Ribas (Felipe Braga-Ribas), a scientist-astronomer from the Brazilian Observatorio Nacional / MCTI. Asteroid Hariklo, size which is approximately 258 kilometers, got its name in honor of Hariklo – the wife of the centaur Chiron. He is in space between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus between the Main Belt asteroids and Kuiper belt. Interested in this asteroid, scientists calculated that he will eclipse the UCAC4 star on June 3, 2013 248-108672, giving astronomers the opportunity to observe this object. At this time, the Braga Ribas team recorded changes in the brightness of the star’s glow, who allowed to register two additional failures, before and after the main event. And these the data allowed scientists not only to determine the fact of the presence of rings asteroid, but also find out their approximate characteristics. Astronomers believe that both rings, called Oiapoque and Chu ‘in honor of the Brazilian rivers, are made up of debris from as a result of collisions of larger space objects. Clear the boundary separating both rings allows us to assume that in between the rings rotates another solid and massive an object. “Probably the asteroid Hariklo has, in addition to rings, a small satellite that we will try to find in the very near future, ”says Braga Ribas.
Saturn Solar System
