Overview
- High-precision JWST stellar occultation data taken on Oct. 18, 2022 provided the baseline for a Science Advances paper that compared those observations with occultations from 2013–2017.
- The study reports the inner ring became roughly 50% more opaque while the outer ring lost about 60% of its infrared opacity compared with 2017 even though both rings stayed at nearly the same radii.
- The authors say the change could mean real material redistribution or loss from the outer ring or it could reflect wavelength-dependent visibility if very small grains block visible light but not Webb’s near-infrared bands.
- Achieving the measurement required very accurate star positions from ESA’s Gaia mission plus careful JWST station-keeping at the L2 point, which together let the telescope resolve narrow ring features in the occultation light curve.
- If confirmed by repeated, especially visible-wavelength, occultations the result would force new models for how tiny rings stay narrow, pointing to shepherd moons, resonances, collisional replenishment, or rapid dust exchange as possible confinement or evolution mechanisms.