Scientists discover ring around dwarf planet Haumea beyond Neptunehttps://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/11/scientists-discover-ring-around-dwarf-planet-haumea-beyond-neptuneRugby ball-shaped dwarf planet with two moons also has a ring around it and orbits in the outer solar system
Katharina Kropshofer
Wednesday 11 October 2017 13.00 EDT Last modified on Thursday 12 October 2017 03.52 EDT
A ring has been discovered around one of the dwarf planets that orbits the outer reaches of the solar system.
Until now, ring-like structures had only been found around the four outer planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
“In 2014 we discovered that a very small body in the Centaurs region [an area of small celestial bodies between the asteroid belt and Neptune] had a ring and at that time it seemed to be a very weird thing,” explained Dr José Ortiz, whose group at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada made the discovery described in the journal Nature. “We didn’t expect to find a ring around Haumea, but we were not too surprised either.”
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