JWST Finds Dynamic Structural Evolution in Chariklo’s Rings

What happened

But there’s one population of asteroids that often gets overlooked called Centaurs, primarily because their orbits are not in a fixed location and instead whose orbits cross the orbits of the outer planets. To determine this, the researchers used a common technique called stellar occultation, which has been used for observations of Chariklo’s ring system in 2017 and 2022 using ground-based telescopes and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), respectively.

The 2017 study established a baseline regarding the rings’ composition and sizes, while the 2022 study used JWST to observe Chariklo and its rings. It was determined that the inner ring was denser than the outer ring.

While Chariklo is about 125 kilometers in radius, the inner ring (C1R) and outer ring (C2R) orbit about 265 kilometers (165 miles) and 280 kilometers (174 miles) from Chariklo’s surface, respectively. Essentially, the inner ring was observed to be more dense than previous studies while the density of the outer ring was decreased.