Centaurs or asteroid-comet hybrids were once thought to be inactive, but recent findings show that Chiron may actually possess a set of rings, similar to Chariklo, showing that centaurs may be more active as they orbit the sun.
Saturn is most famous for its rings, but other planets in the solar system such as Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus also possess a set of rings. Recent discoveries have shown that Chariklo, a centaur or an asteroid-comet hybrid orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Pluto, also possesses a ring system.
In 2011, astronomers have also chanced upon a possible ring system on a second centaur, Chiron. During a stellar occultation in November, researchers were able to detect features that suggest that Chiron may also possess a ring system.
"It's interesting, because Chiron is a centaur - part of that middle section of the solar system, between Jupiter and Pluto, where we originally weren't thinking things would be active, but it's turning out things are quite active," said Amanda Bosh from MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, writes Phys.Org.
According to Discovery News, Chiron was first discovered in 1977. Scientists first thought of centaurs as inactive, frozen celestial bodies, but comet-like activities were observed in the centaur in the late 1980s.
In the mid 1990s, James Elliot, a professor from MIT, also observed a stellar occultation of Chiron and observed evidences of water and dust on the centaur's surface.
On Nov. 29, 2011, Bosh's team was able to observe another stellar occultation using two large telescopes on NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network in Hawaii.
Bosh likened the event to serendipity and said that Chiron is small enough that you can miss it in a blink of an eye.
After analyzing the data gathered from the occultation, Bosh's team was able to detect two sharp, symmetrical features - 3 and 7 kilometers wide, which could be interpreted as a ring system.
While this may be an interesting discovery, Ruprecht from the MIT's Lincoln Laboratory said that researchers will still need to gather more data to determine if Chiron possesses rings or not.