A dense ring of the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar outside its Roche limit

Morgado, B. E.; Sicardy, B.; Braga-Ribas, F.; Ortiz, J. L.; Salo, H.; Vachier, F.; Desmars, J.; Pereira, C. L.; Santos-Sanz, P.; Sfair, R.; Santana, T. de; Assafin, M.; Vieira-Martins, R.; Gomes-Júnior, A. R.; Margoti, G.; Dhillon, V. S.; Fernández-Valenzuela, E.; Broughton, J.; Bradshaw, J.; Langersek, R.; Benedetti-Rossi, G.; Souami, D.; Holler, Bryan J.; Kretlow, M.; Boufleur, R. C.; Camargo, J. I. B.; Duffárd, R.; Beisker, W.; Morales, N.; Lecacheux, J.; Rommel, F. L.; Herald, D.; Benz, W.; Jehin, Emmanuël; Jankowsky, F.; Marsh, T. R.; Littlefair, S. P.; Bruno, G.; Pagano, I.; Brandeker, Alexis; Cameron, A. Collier; Florén, Hans-Gustav; Hara, N.; Olofsson, G.; Wilson, T. G.; Benkhaldoun, Z.; Busuttil, R.; Burdanov, Artem; Ferrais, Marin; Gault, David Arellano; Gillon, M.; Hanna, W.; Kerr, S.; Kolb, U.; Nosworthy, P.; Sebastian, Daniel; Snodgrass, C.; Teng, J. P.; Wit, Julien de

doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05629-6

Cited by 35 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Note that observed values of optical depths for small-body rings have not been consistently calculated in the literature. Published values for optical depths for material surrounding Chiron (Sickafoose et al 2020) ( Braga-Ribas et al 2014;Bérard et al 2017;Braga-Ribas et al 2023;Morgado et al 2023). According to Bérard et al (2017), the factor of 2 stems from Cuzzi (1985), who found that the optical thickness measured from stellar occultations for the Uranian rings was larger by an extinction efficiency factor of 2 than the fractional area physically filled by particles (i.e., the Mie coefficient was Q e = 2; Cuzzi 1985).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we find normal optical depths of roughly 0.2-0.4, and the comparable values for Chariklo's rings would be such that C1R is much more optically thick at τ N = 0.8, and C2R is more optically thin at τ N = 0.12. Ring-type material around small bodies in the outer solar system has been discovered well beyond the Roche limit, a location beyond which basic theory would suggest that particles should disperse or accrete (e.g., Melita et al 2017;Morgado et al 2023;Pereira et al 2023). The Roche radius can be defined as…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, where M is the body's mass, r¢ is the density of the orbiting material, and the factor describing particle shape γ = 0.85 for classical calculations, while γ = 1.6 has been preferred to represent the tidal destruction limit (e.g., Sicardy et al 2019;Morgado et al 2023). For Chiron's mass M = 4.8 ± 2.3 × 10 18 kg (Braga-Ribas et al 2023), water-ice particles with r¢ = -1 g cm 3 , and either value of γ, Chiron's Roche limit is <260 km.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chariklo is the largest Centaur at ∼250 km in diameter, and the rings are roughly 385-390 and 400-405 km from the center of the nucleus, with widths of roughly 7 and 3 km and normal optical depths of 0.31-0.46 and 0.04-0.14, respectively (e.g., Braga-Ribas et al 2014;Morgado et al 2021). A single 70-km wide ring was later detected around the trans-Neptunian object (TNO) Haumea (Ortiz et al 2017), and distant, inhomogeneous material was recently reported around the TNO (50000) Quaoar (Morgado et al 2023;Pereira et al 2023). Haumea and Quaoar are an order of magnitude larger in size and located farther away from the Sun than Chariklo and Chiron.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Material around the Centaur (2060) Chiron from the 2018 November 28 UT Stellar Occultation

Sickafoose,

Levine,

Bosh

et al. 2023

Planet. Sci. J.

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A stellar occultation of Gaia DR3 2646598228351156352 by the Centaur (2060) Chiron was observed from the South African Astronomical Observatory on 2018 November 28 UT. Here we present a positive detection of material surrounding Chiron from the 74-inch telescope for this event. Additionally, a global atmosphere is ruled out at the tens of microbars level for several possible atmospheric compositions. There are multiple 3σ drops in the 74-inch light curve: three during immersion and two during emersion. Occulting material is located between 242 and 270 km from the center of the nucleus in the sky plane. Assuming the ring-plane orientation proposed for Chiron from the 2011 occultation, the flux drops are located at 352, 344, and 316 km (immersion) and 357 and 364 km (emersion) from the center, with normal optical depths of 0.26, 0.36, and 0.22 (immersion) and 0.26 and 0.18 (emersion) and equivalent widths between 0.7 and 1.3 km. This detection is similar to the previously proposed two-ring system and is located within the error bars of that ring-pole plane; however, the normal optical depths are less than half of the previous values, and three features are detected on immersion. These results suggest that the properties of the surrounding material have evolved between the 2011, 2018, and 2022 observations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Material around the Centaur (2060) Chiron from the 2018 November 28 UT Stellar Occultation

Sickafoose,

Levine,

Bosh

et al. 2023

Planet. Sci. J.

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“…The Centaur (2060) Chiron exhibits outgassing behavior (Ruprecht et al 2015) and possibly hosts a ring system (Sickafoose et al 2020). Over the last decade, ambitious international observing campaigns have yielded the surprising discoveries of rings around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo (Braga-Ribas et al 2014;Bérard e al., 2017;Morgado et al 2021), dwarf planet (136108) Haumea (Ortiz et al 2017), and trans-Neptunian object (TNO) (50000) Quaoar (Morgado et al 2023;Pereira et al 2023), and have begun to provide accurate physical properties of TNOs themselves (Souami et al 2020;Santos-Sanz et al 2022a;Fernández-Valenzuela et al 2023). The availability of highly accurate star positions provided by Gaia (Gaia Collaboration et al 2021;Gaia Collaboration 2022) has revolutionized the observing strategy for small-target occultations by enabling portable telescopes to be placed along the path of the occultation shadow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earth-based Stellar Occultation Predictions for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Titan, and Triton: 2023–2050

French,

Souami

2023

Planet. Sci. J.

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In support of studies of decadal-timescale evolution of outer solar system atmospheres and ring systems, we present detailed Earth-based stellar occultation predictions for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Titan, and Triton for 2023–2050, based on the Gaia Data Release 3 star catalog and near-IR K-band photometry from the Two Micron All Sky Survey catalog. We tabulate the number of observable events by year and magnitude interval, reflecting the highly variable frequency of high-signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) events depending on the target’s path relative to the star-rich regions of the Milky Way. We identify regions on Earth where each event is potentially observable, and for atmospheric occultations we determine the latitude of the ingress and egress events. For Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, we also compute the predicted ring occultation event times. We present representative subsets of the predicted events and highlight particularly promising events. Jupiter occultations with K ≤ 7 occur at a cadence of about one per year, with bright events at higher frequency in 2031 and 2043. Saturn occultations are much rarer, with only two predicted events with K ≤ 5 in 2032 and 2047. Ten Uranus ring occultations are predicted with K ≤ 10 for the period 2023–2050. Neptune traverses star-poor regions of the sky until 2068, resulting in only 13 predicted occultations for K ≤ 12 between 2023 and 2050. Titan has several high-S/N events between 2029 and 2031, whereas Triton is limited to a total of 22 occultations with K ≤ 15 between 2023 and 2050. Details of all predicted events are included in the Supplementary Online Material.

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Artefakte im Sonnensystem

Domainko

2024

Extraterrestrische Maschinen

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A dense ring of the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar outside its Roche limit

Cited by 35 publications

References 49 publications

Material around the Centaur (2060) Chiron from the 2018 November 28 UT Stellar Occultation

Material around the Centaur (2060) Chiron from the 2018 November 28 UT Stellar Occultation

Earth-based Stellar Occultation Predictions for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Titan, and Triton: 2023–2050

Artefakte im Sonnensystem

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