You don’t have to go outside of our cosmic neighborhood to find amazing celestial bodies.
It is common for most people to know which are the planets of the Solar System, but it is not so common that, beyond Pluto, the existence of more celestial bodies is known, the so-called dwarf planets. We don’t have to go far to find new planets, since it seems that the Latest discovery from the European Space Agency is a sample of new mystery astronomical.
Quaoar and the mystery of his ring
A recent ESA article introduces us to the dwarf planet Quaoar and its ring. The latter is the one that has surprised scientists the most, since it has generated a really interesting questionas they themselves relate:
Why hasn’t this material coalesced into a small moon?
Discovery in the outer Solar System 💍
observations of @THATCHEOPS
discover a ring around the dwarf planet QuaoarMore information: https://t.co/c7edSAJSQY@esascience pic.twitter.com/krUXy9kq6i
— ESA Spain (@esaes) February 8, 2023
He quaoar’s discovery has been possible through multiple observations between 2018 and 2021, thanks both to terrestrial telescopes as to CHEOPS space telescope, acronym for CHcharacterising ExOPlanet Satellite, which has been partly designed in our country. In order to find out the whereabouts of unknown celestial objects, various stars and celestial bodies that pass by are observed, hiding their light. This freak is called concealment and it allows guessing information about the object that has blocked the light, including knowing if it has an atmosphere or, as has been the case, if there is material around it.
We are before a dwarf planet which is included in the category of trans-Neptunian objectsthat is, those bodies that are beyond the orbit of Neptune, at the edge of the Solar System. quaoar have a 555 kilometer radius and also has its own mooncall Weywot, 80 km radius. These types of occultations are being revealed more frequently today thanks to the GAIA mission, which has made it possible to obtain more precise positions of the stars. In the case of quaoarBesides, his material ring has been quite a surpriseas stated by Giovanni Bruno, Italian astrophysicist:
What is intriguing about this discovery by Quaoar is that the ring of material is much further away from the Roche limit (the minimum distance an object orbiting a massive body can travel). The classical notion that dense rings only survive within this limit must be thoroughly revised.