Saturn is not the one planet in our photo voltaic system with a hoop system. While Saturn’s rings are essentially the most dramatic, the three different fuel giants — Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus — every have a hoop system as effectively. But the enjoyable would not cease there. Astronomers have additionally noticed rings round smaller celestial our bodies: dwarf planets Haumea and Quaoar, in addition to centaur Chariklo.
Now, 2060 Chiron, higher often called simply Chiron, is the most recent celestial physique to hitch the get together. In analyzing observations of Chiron taken by Brazil’s Pico dos Dias Observatory in 2023, astronomers have simply noticed 4 rings plus diffuse materials round this icy centaur, which was first sighted in 1977.
Its rings — thought to be made of water ice and rocky material, potentially from a collision between Chiron and another celestial body — circle the centaur at approximately 170 miles (273 km), 202 miles (325 km), 272 miles (438 km) and 870 miles (1,400 km) from its center. The distant fourth ring, researchers note, might not ultimately be stable enough to be considered a ring, so further observations are necessary.
What’s special about Chiron’s rings is that they’re still forming; this marks the first time astronomers have ever seen a ring system under formation. By comparing the 2023 observations to previous ones from 2022, 2018, and 2011, researchers determined that the ring system has been evolving rapidly.
“It is an evolving system that will help us understand the dynamical mechanisms governing the creation of rings and satellites around small bodies, with potential implications for various types of disk dynamics in the universe,” astronomer Braga Ribas of the Federal University of Technology-Parana and the Interinstitutional Laboratory of e-Astronomy in Brazil, who co-authored a study on the research, told Reuters.
The workforce’s analysis was revealed within the Astrophysical Journal Letters on October 14, 2025.