'We hope [to] gain insight into why this small body even has rings at all, and perhaps detect new fainter rings.'
"We hope [to] gain insight into why this small body even has rings at all, and perhaps detect new fainter rings.""We hope [to] gain insight into why this small body even has rings at all, and perhaps detect new fainter rings.": Chariklo, a distinct type of object known as a Centaur that's somewhere between an asteroid and a comet, had its own Saturn-like rings — two of them, in fact.
Because it's so dark in those reaches of the solar system, starlight is needed to illuminate the Centaur. However, that requires Chariklo to fall across the path of a star that also happens to be in view of the Webb at the same time. The chance crossing of paths — and the technique of using it for observation — is called an occultation.
According to NASA, it's the "first stellar occultation attempted" with the Webb, and by using its near-infrared camera , the astronomers spotted dips in the curve of the object's brightness that corresponded with Chariklo's two rings, "demonstrating a new way of using Webb to explore solar system objects," the team wrote.The astronomers soon came back for a second look using sunlight reflected in the rings, this time without the help of an occultation.
"As we delve deeper into the data, we will explore whether we cleanly resolve the two rings," said Pablo Santos-Sanz, an astronomer from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia. "From the shapes of rings' occultation light curves, we also will explore the rings' thickness, the sizes and colors of the ring particles, and more," he added. "We hope [to] gain insight into why this small body even has rings at all, and perhaps detect new fainter rings."
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