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>> Joe: The tiny, unexpected flicker of a star in the night sky has led to the discovery
of an asteroid hurtling through our cosmos with rings around it, like Saturn, but exponentially
smaller, and not like Saturn at all…except for the rings.
The asteroid, fully equipped with its halo accessories, is the first of its kind discovered
by tiny humans and is now one of five objects in our solar system with rings. It joins the
ranks of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and she goes by the name of Chariklo. Chariklo
sports a 150 (250 kilometer) mile diameter and orbits between Uranus and Saturn.
>> And she’s a centaur object, meaning Chariklo retains both comet and asteroid characteristics.
She’s like a mixed race space object… or not.
Human smart people manning seven different telescopes here on earth were made aware of
Chariklo’s existence when a star seemed to disappear for a small amount of time. And
they were like what? And there was a tiny flicker before and after the disappearing
act. And they were like what, what, whaaaat? >> Turns out it was all Chariklo and those
tiny flickers were the 2 rings, one 3 kilometers wide, one 7 kilometers wide, which ride side
saddle on a gap 9 kilometers wide. Scientists speculate that a yet to be discovered
moon keeps the debris in orbit and that one day, all the dust and rock and gas that makes
up the rings, could itself, form a moon for the asteroid. Man… space is cool.
>> What’s your favorite thing about space?
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