USA: The James Webb Space Telescope has allowed researchers to get a closer look at the ringed asteroid Chariklo. When Chariklo passed in front of a distant star in 2013, observers first noticed the rings. Chariklo's rings appeared to briefly cross in front of the star, along with two additional, smaller objects.
Although it is known that larger planets such as Jupiter and Neptune have rings, the 2013 discovery is notable because it was "the first ring found around a small Solar System object."
The Webb telescope now provides a clearer, more precise image of the ringed asteroid and exemplifies a new method of discovering Solar System objects.
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In October 2022, astronomers used Webb's near-infrared camera to observe the Chariklo occult star Gaia DR3 6873519665992128512. Along with the Webb telescope, it is the "first stellar occultation" effort.
The brightness of the Gaia star was monitored for changes that might be due to an occultation. According to NASA, the rings around the Chariklo asteroid were discovered after a careful examination of the star's brightness.
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Chariklo is about 51 times smaller than Earth and has a width of 250 km. Its rings are located at a distance of about 400 kilometers from the center. Beyond the orbit of Saturn, it is located more than 3.2 billion kilometers away.
The occultation is "the only tool to image the rings themselves" because Webb is unable to directly image the rings due to the asteroid's size and distance.
According to predictions, Charikalo's rings contain ice as well as other dark matter, possibly the remnants of an earlier cosmic collision with an asteroid.
Although ground-based telescope spectra had hinted at the presence of this ice, Noam Pinilla-Alonso, who oversaw Webb's spectroscopic observations of Charikalo, stated that the good quality of the Webb spectrum clearly indicated the presence of crystalline ice for the first time.
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We check whether the two rings are cleanly resolved as we go deeper into the data. According to planetary scientist Pablo Santos-Sanz, we will investigate the thickness of the rings, the sizes and colors of ring particles, and much more from the shape of occult light curves. We can also trace the significance of the rings on Chariklo's tiny body.