{"id":7101,"date":"2014-03-26T20:48:12","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T20:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=7101"},"modified":"2014-03-26T20:48:12","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T20:48:12","slug":"eso-detects-ring-around-asteroid-chariklo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=7101","title":{"rendered":"ESO detects ring around asteroid Chariklo"},"content":{"rendered":"

A surprising find by the European Southern Observatory (ESO<\/a>):<\/p>\n

First Ring System Around Asteroid<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Observations at many sites in South America, including ESO\u2019s La Silla Observatory, have made the surprise discovery that the remote asteroid Chariklo is surrounded by two dense and narrow rings. This is the smallest object by far found to have rings and only the fifth body in the Solar System \u2014 after the much larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune \u2014 to have this feature. The origin of these rings remains a mystery, but they may be the result of a collision that created a disc of debris. The new results are published online in the journal Nature on 26 March 2014.<\/p>\n

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Click to Enlarge<\/a><\/div>\n

The rings of Saturn are one of the most spectacular sights in the sky, and less prominent rings have also been found around the other giant planets. Despite many careful searches, no rings had been found around smaller objects orbiting the Sun in the Solar System. Now observations of the distant minor planet\u00a0[1]<\/a>\u00a0(10199) Chariklo\u00a0[2]<\/a>\u00a0as it passed in front of a star have shown that this object too is surrounded by two fine rings.<\/p>\n

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