(ORDO NEWS) — The Cheops spacecraft has discovered a mysterious and rather unexpected ring for scientists that surrounds the dwarf planet Quaoar.
It is a system that refutes the existing ideas about the nature of ring systems.
A brief report on the study is published on the website of the European Space Agency ESA. An unusual ring was discovered by the ExOPlanet Satellite (Cheops) mission.
She made observations of the dwarf planet Quaoar, which is part of our solar system. As a result, a ring was discovered, which consists of a very dense material.
Ring systems have long been known to scientists. However, the new structure refuted previously put forward theories about the nature of the formation of such systems and gave rise to several mysteries at once.
For example, scientists were puzzled by the fact that the ring is located at a distance from the planet, almost seven and a half times the radius of Quaoar.
They still cannot answer the following question: why did this material not merge into a small moon?
As an example for comparison, scientists cite Saturn – it is a ring-shaped planet surrounded by accumulations of dust and small satellites.
Quaoar’s ring is much smaller than Saturn’s, and is not the only ring system that exists around a dwarf or minor planet.
However, astronomers say what makes Quaoar’s ring unique is where it is in relation to Quaoar itself.
According to astrophysicist Giovanni Bruno, a researcher at the INAF Astrophysical Observatory in Italy, any celestial object with a noticeable gravitational field has a certain limit, known as the Roche limit.
Roughly speaking, this is the distance within which an orbiting object is able to form rings.
Until now, it was precisely known that systems of dense rings can exist only inside the Roche limit. This is exactly what is observed at the rings of Saturn, as well as the rings of the dwarf planets Chariklo and Haumea.
“What’s intriguing about this discovery around Quaoar is that the ring of dense material is well beyond the Roche limit,” says Giovanni Bruno.
And this is a real puzzle for scientists, because, according to the generally accepted theory, the rings beyond the Roche limit should merge into a small satellite, into a small moon, and the whole process should not take more than a few decades.
“As a result of our observations, the classical notion that dense rings exist only within the Roche limit of a planetary body needs to be completely revised,” Giovanni concludes.
Scientists have already suggested that very low temperatures on Quaoar may be the cause of the phenomenon.
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