REAL LIFE NEWS: A DWARF PLANET WITH A RING AROUND IT
by Hazed
There’s a rock that orbits the Earth way out beyond Pluto, called Haumea, and recent observations have shown something very surprising – the dwarf planet has a ring.
This is the first planet beyond Pluto that has been discovered to be sporting a ring.
Haumea is a frigid world about as wide as Pluto, shaped like a flattened egg. It has two known moons: Hiʻiaka and Namaka.
The rings, which are similar to those found around Uranus and Neptune, were spotted in the pattern of light from a star which was occluded by the dwarf planet.
Haumea isn’t the only minor planet to have rings: the 250km-side Chariko and Chiron are also ringed, but they orbit much closer than Neptune, somewhere between the aseroid belt and the Kuiper belt.
You can see a video representation of the rings at the first link below. There’s more info about the discovery of Haumea at the second link, and a detailed picture at the third.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/12/haumea_dwarf_planet_rings/
https://gizmodo.com/whoa-scientists-have-detected-a-ring-around-this-wacky-1819331592
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171017.html
