Related papers: Ejected Surface Regolith as a Potential Source Mat…

The discovery that the centaur (10199) Chariklo possesses a ring system opens questions about their origin. We here asses the plausibility of different scenarios for the origin of the observed ring system. We first consider the possibility…

Centaurs are minor planets orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune that have or had crossing orbits with one or more giant planets. Recent observations and reinterpretation of previous observations have revealed the existence of ring systems…

Observations in 2013 and 2014 of the Centaur 10199 Chariklo and its ring system consistently indicated that the radial width of the inner, more massive ring varies with longitude. That strongly suggests that this ring has a finite…

A ring system consisting of two dense narrow rings has been discovered around Centaur Chariklo. The existence of these rings around a small object poses various questions, such as their origin, stability, and lifetime. In order to…

To date, rings are found around a Centaur (10199) Chariklo, trans-neptunian objects (TNOs) (136108) Haumea, and (50000) Quaoar. These discoveries suggest that asteroidal ring systems may be common, particularly in the outer solar system.…

The Centaur population is composed by minor bodies wandering between the giant planets and that frequently perform close gravitational encounters with these planets, which leads to a chaotic orbital evolution. Recently, the discovery of two…

Until now, rings have been detected in the Solar System exclusively around the four giant planets. Here we report the discovery of the first minor-body ring system around the Centaur object (10199) Chariklo, a body with equivalent radius…

The unexpected finding of a ring system around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo opened a new window for dynamical studies and posed many questions about the formation and evolutionary mechanisms of Centaurs as well as the relationship to…

In 2014, the discovery of two well-defined rings around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo were announced. This was the first time that such structures were found around a small body. In 2015, it was proposed that the Centaur (2060) Chiron may…

Chariklo is the only small Solar system body confirmed to have rings. Given the instability of its orbit, the presence of rings is surprising, and their origin remains poorly understood. In this work, we study the dynamical history of the…

Since 2013, dense and narrow rings are known around the small Centaur object Chariklo and the dwarf planet Haumea. Dense material has also been detected around the Centaur Chiron, although its nature is debated. This is the first time ever…

The dusty regolith covering the surfaces of asteroids and planetary satellites differs in size, shape, and composition from terrestrial soil particles and is subject to very different environmental conditions. Experimental studies of the…

Owing to the extremely low gravity of small near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), it has been assumed that impact-generated rock fragments escape into space and thus do not contribute to the accumulation of regolith. However, centimeter-sized stones…

Dense and narrow rings have been discovered recently around the small Centaur object Chariklo and the dwarf planet Haumea, while being suspected around the Centaur Chiron. They are the first rings observed in the Solar System elsewhere than…

The recent discovery of narrow rings around minor bodies has raised many questions regarding their origin and current dynamics. Sharp ring boundaries seem indicative of shepherding moonlets, but none have been found. All rings lie close to…

In situ observations of small asteroids show that surfaces covered by boulders and coarse terrain are frequent on such bodies. Regolith grain sizes have distributions on approximately mm and cm scales, and the behavior of such large grains…

The surprising discovery of a ring system around the Centaur 10199 Chariklo in 2013 led to a reanalysis of archival stellar occultation data for the Centaur 2060 Chiron by Ortiz et al. One possible interpretation of that data is that a…

Until about a decade ago, ring systems were only known to exist around giant planets. Each one of the four giant planets harbours its own distinctive and unique system of rings and inner satellites. The past decade has been marked by the…

This paper studies the long-term migration of disturbed regolith materials on the surface of Solar System small bodies from the viewpoint of nonlinear dynamics. We propose an approximation model for secular mass movement, which combines the…

All the four giant planets in our Solar System have rings, but their characteristics are very different. The rings consist of a number of small particles, although individual particles have not been directly imaged. Near the central planet,…