There’s a ring around this dwarf planet which shouldn’t be there
A small icy world far beyond Neptune possesses a ring like the ones around Saturn. Perplexingly, the ring is at a distance where simple gravitational calculations suggest there should be none. Read more at straitstimes.com.
Copy to clipboard https://str.operating a global surveillance programme covering more than 40 countries in five continents.Copy to clipboard https://str.Housing Board’s lease buyback scheme as at December 2022, with nearly 70 per cent of them receiving between $100,000 to $200,000 for selling part of their remaining flat leases to the board.
sg/wv5f A small icy world far beyond Neptune possesses a ring like the ones around Saturn.Perplexingly, the ring is at a distance where simple gravitational calculations suggest there should be none.State Department spokesman Ned Price was tight-lipped on Thursday about China’s targets.“That’s very strange,” said Professor Bruno Morgado from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.In Sydney, average weekly rents per property have increased 11 per cent in the past year to A$679 (S$620), but can be much higher in areas around university campuses.He is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Nature in February that describes the ring that encircles Quaoar, a planetary body about 1,126km in diameter that orbits the Sun at a distance of about 6.But the Washington Post, quoting US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported that Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines had been targeted.4 billion km.Most households chose to retain 30 years of their lease, with about 61 per cent doing so.
Quaoar (pronounced KWA-wahr, the name of the creator god for the Indigenous Tongva people who live around Los Angeles) is a little less than half the diameter of Pluto and about a third of the diameter of Earth’s moon.North-East Asia Tokyo said on Thursday that it was coordinating with Washington to analyse unidentified aerial objects that had been spotted over Japan in June 2020 and September 2021.Purpose-built student accommodation around several major universities in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth is already largely full, particularly in inner-city areas.It is likely to be big enough to qualify as a dwarf planet, pulled by its gravity into a sphere.But no one can say that for sure, because images taken by even the most powerful telescopes have revealed Quaoar as only an indistinct blob.Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense dismissed claims on Friday that a spy balloon had been seen over the Presidential Palace in Taipei in September 2021.The blob also has a moon, Weywot (the son of Quaoar in Tongva belief).“Emergency accommodation is offered to students who need it – along with financial bursaries to help cover rent, food, and other general living and study expenses,” a spokesman for the university told The Sydney Morning Herald.Quaoar orbits the Sun in the Kuiper belt, a region of frozen debris beyond Neptune that includes Pluto.South-East Asia The Philippine military said last Sunday that it could not confirm claims from a defence analyst that an unidentified flying object, which had been spotted flying over the northern province of Pangasinan, might have been a Chinese spy balloon.HDB said about 69 per cent of households on the scheme had balance proceeds, which they received in cash after topping up their CPF retirement accounts to the basic retirement sum.
The ring is not visible in telescope images.Astronomers found it indirectly, when distant stars happened to pass behind Quaoar and have their light blocked.More On This Topic.Landlords say some have been offering to pay rents that are much higher than advertised prices, or to start paying rent immediately, even if they would not be arriving for weeks.From 2018 to 2021, Quaoar passed in front of four stars, and astronomers were able to observe the shadow of the eclipses, also known as stellar occultations.They also observed some dimming of the starlight before and after the stars blinked out.That pointed to a ring obscuring part of the light, an international team of astronomers concluded in last Wednesday’s Nature paper.She said one applicant offered to pay six months’ rent in advance.Since this scheme’s introduction in November 2015, HDB has offered about 46,500 two-room flexi flats.
The ring looks to be uneven.In some places, it is very thin, a few kilometres wide, while in other parts, it may be a couple of hundred kilometres.The ring particles, if collected, would form a moon about 4..8km wide, according to Prof Morgado said.“I’m impressed by the thoroughness of the analysis,” said Massachusetts’ Wellesley College emeritus professor of astrophysics Richard French, who has studied planetary rings for decades.About 27 per cent went for 35-year leases, 17 per cent for 30-year leases, and 14 per cent for 45-year leases.
He was not part of the research.” But analysts say the surging demand, particularly from Chinese students, could fuel further rent rises of at least 5 per cent in inner-city areas of Sydney and Melbourne.For a long time, astronomers thought asteroids and other small bodies were too small to have companions such as moons and rings.But in the last few decades, they discovered moons around many asteroids and Kuiper belt objects.They then spotted rings – essentially moons that failed to coalesce – around smaller objects.Last year, there were 613,327 foreign students at Australian educational institutions such as universities, schools and other colleges.In 2013, astronomers discovered several rings around Chariklo, a body known as a centaur that orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus.Separately, HDB said as at the end of 2022, more than 1,500 households have benefited from the silver housing bonus.
In 2017, a ring was discovered around another Kuiper belt object, Haumea, also from dimming during a stellar occultation.But those rings are fairly close to their worlds.Universities typically set aside on-campus accommodation for students, but much of this is full – partly because some students are staying there longer due to off-campus housing shortages.More On This Topic Earth's inner core may have started spinning other way, study shows In 1848, French astronomer Edouard Roche calculated what is now known as the Roche limit.Material orbiting closer than this distance would tend to be pulled apart by tidal forces exerted by the parent body.Thus, a ring within the Roche limit would tend to remain a ring, while a ring of debris outside the Roche limit would usually coalesce into a moon.Universities have even appealed to staff and alumni to rent out spare rooms to international students.More On This Topic.
The rings around the giant planets of the solar system – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – generally fit within the constraints of the Roche limit.Among the distant smaller worlds, Chariklo’s rings actually lie a bit beyond the Roche limit.The ring around Haumea is within the limit.“The last thing we want is our housing supply or rental market crisis to become a handbrake on our education sector because we have nowhere for prospective students to live,” said the council’s executive director Torie Brown.Then there is the Quaoar ring.At a distance of 4,023km, it is way beyond the Roche limit, which the scientists calculated to be 1,770km.
At that distance, according to the physics underlying Roche’s calculations, the particles should have coalesced into a moon in 10 to 20 years, Prof Morgado said.“It really shouldn’t be there,” he said.“We should look at this limit again and better understand how the satellites are formed.” A potential explanation for Quaoar’s distant ring is Weywot’s presence.The moon may have created gravitational disturbances that prevented the ring particles from forming into another moon.
At the ultra-cold temperatures in the outer solar system, icy particles are bouncier and less likely to stick together when they collide.Astronomer Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, a co-discoverer of Quaoar in 2002, said the discovery of the ring baffled him.“If the data weren’t so convincing, I would insist they weren’t real,” he said.Prof French said the discovery demonstrated how much remained to be learnt about rings and that many more are likely to be discovered around the small bodies in the outer solar system.“The fact that we’ve found rings around three of them already means that rings around things are really pretty common,” Prof French added.
More On This Topic ‘Once in 50,000 years’ comet may be visible to the naked eye Rings around small solar system bodies billions of miles away may seem esoteric, but the clumping – or non-clumping – of the particles is key to understanding the beginnings of the solar system.“You might think that a small ring around a small object in the distant solar system doesn’t have broad applicability,” Prof French said.“But actually this process, of how particles accrete, is really the beginning step of planet formation.” NYTIMES Join.