Paul McCartney channeled ‘Let It Be’ from the stars, and I’ve got the receipts: his transits at time of writing. Let me show you.

¡Por fin! Aquella idea que parecía casi una locura cuando recibí la llamada de John Stansberry en 2014 había llegado a buen puerto, regalándonos además un descubrimiento inesperado.

New observations challenge ideas of a "sleepy" outer solar system

Así descubrió el equipo del IAA-CSIC, con el telescopio James Webb, algo insólito en los anillos de Chariklo, un pequeño cuerpo helado entre Saturno y Urano.

James Webb has revealed unexpected changes in Chariklo’s two rings, which appear to be evolving in opposite ways over only a few years. For much of modern astronomy, rings were believed to belong only to the giant planets of the Solar System, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. That assumption changed in 2013, when astronomers discovered two dense rings around Chariklo, a small body only about 250 kilometers across that travels between Saturn and Uranus at nearly 17 times the Earth-Sun distance. On October 18, 2022, researchers led by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to examine Chariklo’s rings during a stellar occultation. This method tracks how a star’s light dims as an object passes in front of it. A new study published in Science Advances, also led by the IAA-CSIC, now shows for the first time that Chariklo’s rings can change measurably over the course of only a few years. “By comparing JWST observations with those obtained during other stellar occultations over the last decade, we discovered opposite changes in the two rings: while the inner ring shows significantly higher opacity, the outer ring shows lower opacity, ” explains Pablo Santos-Sanz,...

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Un estudio publicado en Science Advances revela cambios sorprendentes en los anillos de Chariklo, un pequeño cuerpo situado entre Saturno y Urano. Las observaciones del telescopio James Webb muestran que uno de sus anillos parece haberse vuelto más opaco mientras el otro pierde densidad aparente, un fenómeno que desconcierta a los científicos.

En fjern asteroide kaldet Chariklo har et ringsystem, der er næsten umuligt at se fra Jorden, men nu har forskere opdaget en forandring.

One ring became more opaque, and the other became more translucent. Astronomers don’t know why.

One ring became more opaque, and the other became more translucent. Astronomers don’t know why.