Are there rings around Pluto?

Jitendra Jatashankar Rawal, Bijan Nikouravan
2011 International Journal of Fundamental Physical Sciences  
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
more » ... 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, various Roche radii being in ~1/2 three-body mean motion resonance. Calculations of gravitational spheres of influence of Pluto which turns out to be 4.2 x 10 6 km for prograde orbits and 8.5 x 10 6 km for retrograde orbits together with the existence of Kuiper Belt in the vicinity of Pluto assure that there may exist a few rocks (satellites)/dust rings/sheets so far undiscovered moving in prograde orbits around the planet and few others which are distant ones and move around Pluto in the region between 4.2x10 6 km and 8.5x10 6 km in retrograde orbits.
doi:10.14331/ijfps.2011.3300002 fatcat:hi6nray62jcovjls2saqg2m4ia