Astronomers were left stunned after they spotted a Saturn-like ring of dust and debris around a dwarf planet called Quaoar. The dwarf planet Quaoar was named after a god of creation in Native American mythology. Quaoar is one of the trans-Neptunian objects and it was discovered in 2002.
A new study published on Wednesday revealed that Quaoar, which is a mini-planet orbiting in the outer reaches of the solar system, has a ring that defies the rules of physics.
The study is titled—"A dense ring of the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar outside its Roche limit"—and it is published in the journal Nature.
The study mentions that so far, all known dense rings were located close enough to their parent bodies, being inside the Roche limit. It is a place where tidal forces prevent material with reasonable densities from aggregating into a satellite.
But the ring around the trans-Neptunian body (50000) Quaoar is different as it is outside its classical Roche limit.
Quaoar has an estimated radius of 555 km and also possesses a roughly 80-km satellite.
Astronomer Bruno Morgado of the Valongo Observatory and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, said: "This is the discovery of a ring located in a place that should not be possible." Morgado is the lead author of the study.
The report found that the Roche limit cannot be the indicator that can determine where ring material can survive.
Astronomer and study co-author Isabella Pagano said: "Ring systems may be due to debris from the same formation process that originated the central body or may be due to material resulting after a collision with another body and captured by the central body. We do not have hints at the moment on how the Quaoar ring formed."
Pagano is the director of Italian research institute INAF's Astrophysical Observatory of Catania.