Press Conference in Brazil to Announce Discovery in Outer Solar System

[edgitarra]

What you guys think the discovery would be? Seems interesting!

An international team of astronomers, led by Felipe Braga-Ribas (Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), has used telescopes at seven locations in South America, including the 1.54-metre Danish and TRAPPIST telescopes at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, to make a surprise discovery in the outer Solar System.

This unexpected result raises several unanswered questions and is expected to provoke much debate. A press conference will be held in Brazil to present the new results and allow opportunities for questions.

Note that all information regarding these findings is under strict embargo until 19:00 CET (15:00 BRT) on Wednesday 26 March 2014.

When: The conference will be held on 26 March 2014 at 14:30 local time (BRT) and will take place in Portuguese with a summary in English.

source:
http://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann14021/

 

[sacriface]

Sounds fairly exciting!
As far as it isn't just a build up to get some publicity on something relatively unimportant?

About the purposes of the telescope system in question:

TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) is devoted to the detection and characterization of planets located outside our solar system (exoplanets) and to the study of comets and other small bodies in our solar system.
-wikipedia

Felipe Braga-Ribas seems to be specialized in researching occultations.
(_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultation)

That is, objects that don't emit their own light, so the detection of them is mostly possibly via the their casted shadow..
Guess we all know what comes to mind first...
However I wouldn't get my hopes too high up as the PTB won't let too large a cat out of the bag(unless they have a vested interest), OSIT.

 

[Vulcan59]

Possibly related to this "dwarf planet" discovery?

http://www.sott.net/article/276322-New-dwarf-planet-hints-at-giant-world-far-beyond-Pluto

 

[edgitarra]

The discovery has been revealed. I think it is pretty interesting:

Observations at many sites in South America, including ESO’s La Silla Observatory, have made the surprise discovery that the remote asteroid Chariklo is surrounded by two dense and narrow rings. This is the smallest object by far found to have rings and only the fifth body in the Solar System — after the much larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — to have this feature. The origin of these rings remains a mystery, but they may be the result of a collision that created a disc of debris. The new results are published online in the journal Nature on 26 March 2014.

The rings of Saturn are one of the most spectacular sights in the sky, and less prominent rings have also been found around the other giant planets. Despite many careful searches, no rings had been found around smaller objects orbiting the Sun in the Solar System. Now observations of the distant minor planet [1] (10199) Chariklo [2] as it passed in front of a star have shown that this object too is surrounded by two fine rings.

"We weren’t looking for a ring and didn’t think small bodies like Chariklo had them at all, so the discovery — and the amazing amount of detail we saw in the system — came as a complete surprise!" says Felipe Braga-Ribas (Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) who planned the observation campaign and is lead author on the new paper.

Chariklo is the largest member of a class known as the Centaurs [3] and it orbits between Saturn and Uranus in the outer Solar System. Predictions had shown that it would pass in front of the star UCAC4 248-108672 on 3 June 2013, as seen from South America [4]. Astronomers using telescopes at seven different locations, including the 1.54-metre Danish and TRAPPIST telescopes at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile [5], were able to watch the star apparently vanish for a few seconds as its light was blocked by Chariklo — an occultation [6].

But they found much more than they were expecting. A few seconds before, and again a few seconds after the main occultation there were two further very short dips in the star’s apparent brightness [7]. Something around Chariklo was blocking the light! By comparing what was seen from different sites the team could reconstruct not only the shape and size of the object itself but also the shape, width, orientation and other properties of the newly discovered rings.

The team found that the ring system consists of two sharply confined rings only seven and three kilometres wide, separated by a clear gap of nine kilometres — around a small 250-kilometre diameter object orbiting beyond Saturn.

"For me, it was quite amazing to realise that we were able not only to detect a ring system, but also pinpoint that it consists of two clearly distinct rings," adds Uffe Gråe Jørgensen (Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark), one of the team. "I try to imagine how it would be to stand on the surface of this icy object — small enough that a fast sports car could reach escape velocity and drive off into space — and stare up at a 20-kilometre wide ring system 1000 times closer than the Moon." [8]

Although many questions remain unanswered, astronomers think that this sort of ring is likely to be formed from debris left over after a collision. It must be confined into the two narrow rings by the presence of small putative satellites.

Source:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1410/

EDIT: There is also a small video clip here, it is called ESOCast 64 and it should be the latest one:
http://www.eso.org/public/videos/archive/category/esocast/

 

[sacriface]

"For me, it was quite amazing to realise that we were able not only to detect a ring system, but also pinpoint that it consists of two clearly distinct rings," adds Uffe Gråe Jørgensen (Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark), one of the team. "I try to imagine how it would be to stand on the surface of this icy object — small enough that a fast sports car could reach escape velocity and drive off into space — and stare up at a 20-kilometre wide ring system 1000 times closer than the Moon." [8]

Interesting how are they going to go about explaining how does a 250km diameter body have the gravity to maintain these rings?
Especially claiming it is made of ice. Same crappy model, new "anomaly".

EDIT: There is also a small video clip here, it is called ESOCast 64 and it should be the latest one:
http://www.eso.org/public/videos/archive/category/esocast/

In the video the lector says about a rocky body. So, what is it then?

I think even though such discoveries are always interesting, it's still a bit of a hype, and if they would consider the Electric Universe Theory, it wouldn't be such a big deal.

There's also the not so new discovery of Rhea's (Saturn's moon) rings, for just one other instance, that is conveniently ommited in listing the smaller planetary bodies in our system having this feature.

Here's an article about it, along with the support of the aforementioned electric model:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch08/081028rhea.htm

 

[sacriface]

And so the discovery caused disappointment among astronomers.

http://www.sott.net/article/276347-Astronomers-disappointed-after-discovering-rings-around-Asteroid-Chariklo

 

[edgitarra]

And so the discovery caused disappointment among astronomers.

http://www.sott.net/article/276347-Astronomers-disappointed-after-discovering-rings-around-Asteroid-Chariklo

Could you give me a link that tells more about their disappointment ? I only see SOTT's comment about it, but in the original article it didn't sound like that, even though I agree with The Electric Universe Theory.

Apparently, those astronomers were "disappointed" because they didn't think that there could be asteriods with rings.

 

[sacriface]

Yes, I also haven't found a direct reference to the astronomers' disappointment.

I think it was only suggested by sott.net, as it clearly undermines the current model to which the astronomers cling very strongly, to a ridiculous extent. This problem is discussed in Sott Radio show with Wallace Thornhill.

Thus, if they refuse to revise their current assumptions, another piece of data turning them upside-down is going to be a mere disappointment... osit