Rings around binary pairs?
- Thread starter z993126
- Start date
Not sure you would get rings, you might capture small objects in those locations, Rings are thought to be caused by breakup of objects that are within the Roche limit of an object. For most binary pairs they are quite far apart and so the barycentre is far away from the object.
Most you might expect as I was saying is a few small objects orbiting or captured in the Lagrangian points.
Most you might expect as I was saying is a few small objects orbiting or captured in the Lagrangian points.
No; the best you can get in this regard are asteroid belts orbiting a stellar barycentre.
Which is I think realistic enough; as far as we know, rings would not be long-term or even short-term stable around a barycentre; the two planets whizzing past one after the other would rapidly disperse a ring. But then, I suspect that the situation often seen in ED, where tow ringed gas giants are co-orbiting each other and the rings are out at all sorts of weird angles to each other instead of all being in the same plane, is equally unstable in the real world. Of course, we don't have any large co-orbiting planets in our solar system, so we don't really know until and unless we find a whole bunch of them in real life and look for rings.
Which is I think realistic enough; as far as we know, rings would not be long-term or even short-term stable around a barycentre; the two planets whizzing past one after the other would rapidly disperse a ring. But then, I suspect that the situation often seen in ED, where tow ringed gas giants are co-orbiting each other and the rings are out at all sorts of weird angles to each other instead of all being in the same plane, is equally unstable in the real world. Of course, we don't have any large co-orbiting planets in our solar system, so we don't really know until and unless we find a whole bunch of them in real life and look for rings.