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Ring around Quaoar
February 16 , 2023
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- Scientists have detected a ring encircling Quaoar dwarf planet akin to the one around the planet Saturn.
- Quaoar is little less than half the diameter of Pluto and about one-third of the diameter of Earth’s moon.
- It orbits the sun in the Kuiper belt, a region of frozen debris beyond Neptune that includes Pluto.
- But the one around Quaoar defies the current understanding of where such rings can form - located much further away from it than current scientific understanding would allow.
- Discovered in 2002, Quaoar is currently defined as a minor planet and is proposed as a dwarf planet.
- In 2013, astronomers discovered a couple of rings around Chariklo, a body known as a centaur that orbits the sun between Saturn and Uranus.
- In 2017, a ring was discovered around another Kuiper belt object, Haumea, also from dimming during a stellar occultation.
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