Scientists have discovered the first asteroid with ring around it, not just one but two rings. The asteroid Chariklo orbits between Saturn and Uranus in the outer Solar System. Chariklo’s ring system has two sharp rings of only seven and three kilometres wide, separated by a nine kilometer gap. The two rings are named Oiapoque and Chuí, two rivers near the northern and southern extremes of Brazil.
The asteroid is the smallest object found to have rings and it is only the fifth object in the Solar System to have ring. Other objects with rings include the larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It looks like the asteroid Chariklo has more surprises in store. Felipe Braga-Ribas (Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) a lead scientist who made the discovery said
it’s likely that Chariklo has at least one small moon still waiting to be discovered
Learn more about the amazing discovery of the asteroid with rings from the video by ESO observatory.
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