Just like Saturn, astronomers have unexpectedly discovered rings around pluto-sized dwarf planet Quaoar in the Kuiper belt using HiPERCAM on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). Researchers from UCF’s Florida Space Institute notes that aside from rings found on the satellites of Saturn and Jupiter, no other celestial object in our solar system has been viewed to have a ring outside the Roche limit.
Dwarf planet Quaoar orbits beyond Neptune is too distant and the ring too narrow to be seen directly. Its discovery was made during an occultation event, when a planet passes directly in front of a star, enabling astronomers to see a silhouette briefly using Earth-based telescopes. Studying this planet will allow researchers to explore various theories for how the ring could remain stable.
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Astronomers who work in this area predict these occultations to the second, years in advance. One of these was predicted and we were on the observatory on La Palma. The ring came as a real surprise and doubly surprising was where it was, well outside the theoretical maximum for where a ring can survive according to classical theory. These are the most unusual rings we’ve seen,” said Prof Vik Dhillon, University of Sheffield’s department of physics and astronomy.
