Are there rings around Pluto?

Authors: J. J. Rawal, Bijan Nikouravan

Affiliations: The Indian Planetary Society (IPS) B-201, Lokmanya Tilak Road, Borivali (W), Mumbai – 400092, India, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Department of Physics, Islamic Azad University (IAU)-Varamin - Pishva Branch, Iran

Emails: ips.science@gmail.com; nikou@um.edu.my; nikouravan@gmail.com

Journal: International Journal of Fundamental Physical Sciences (IJFPS)

Volume: 1, Issue: 1, Pages: 6-10, Date: March, 2011

ISSN: 2231-8186

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14331/ijfps.2011.330002

Abstract

Considering effects of tidal plus centrifugal stress acting on icy-rocks and the tensile strength thereof, icy-rocks being in the density range (1–2.4) g cm-3 which had come into existence as collisional ejecta (debris) in the vicinity of Pluto at the time when Pluto-Charon system came into being as a result of a giant impact of a Kuiper Belt Object on the primordial Pluto, it is shown, here, that these rocks going around Pluto in its vicinity are under slow disruption generating a stable ring structure consisting of icy-rocks of diameters in the range (20–90) km, together with fine dust and particles disrupted off the rocks, and spread all over the regions in their respective Roche Zones...

Keywords

Giant impact, Pluto-Charon System, Roche-limit, resonance, rings, new satellites, Kuiper-Belt

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/