A secret moon may be responsible for mysterious rings surrounding a celestial rock

A secret moon might be the reason behind the mysterious rings around a space rock.

According to the research published inThe Planetary Science Journal, scientists have found that a tiny, unseen moonlet might be shepherding a pair of gossamer rings around Chariklo, a minor planet orbiting the Sun in the space between Jupiter and Neptune.

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Chariklo is 250 kilometres (155 miles) in diameter and is the only known centaur with rings. It has not one, but two rings. However, researchers are still figuring out how asteroids maintain rings.

Scientists have found that moonlets might be the plausible explanation behind the rings. Amanda Sickafoose of the Planetary Science Institute told Science Alert, "Rings around minor planets have only been recently discovered, and only a small number of such systems are currently known."

She added, "There has been significant research into the dazzling rings around the giant planets; however, the mechanisms of ring formation and evolution around small objects are not well understood. We've shown that one of the possibilities for thin rings to exist around small bodies is that a small satellite is sculpting them."

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Sickafoose and her colleague, computer scientist Mark Lewis of Trinity University, found that a single tiny moon as small as one kilometre in diameter can maintain gossamer rings like Chariklo.

Chariklo has two rings that are very close to a distance to it, known as the Roche limit. Another factor favouring the moonlet theory is that a small moon can keep the ring perturbed enough to stay.

"Planetary rings will naturally spread or disperse over time. Chariklo exhibits two thin rings, a few kilometres in width. In order for the rings to stay this thin, there needs to be a mechanism to confine the material and prevent it from dispersing," Sickafoose said.

However, Chariklo is tiny and far away. Thus, scientists cannot gather more information about Chariklo until and unless they send out a mission to get a bit closer. There might be some indirect way of figuring out whether or not there's a moonlet orbiting the asteroid-like chunk of rock and maintaining its rings.

"We show this in the paper by simulating a Chariklo-like ring system that does not have a satellite, and we find that the width of the rings increases linearly with time. It is unlike the situation when there is a satellite in resonance with the ring material, which acts to confine the rings into the kilometre-sized widths that are observed," Sickafoose mentioned.

The researchers are still finding the composition of these rings. There's a high probability that ice accounts for quite a substantial proportion. However, it's unclear how massive the particles are or how they interact.

(With inputs from agencies)