"Brazlian researchers discover asteroid with rings"
"The European Southern Observatory announced this week the discovery of rings around an asteroid 1.4 billion miles from Earth. Chariklo is the largest of the class of asteroids orbiting the sun between Saturn and Uranus known as Centaurs."
Google cache before it was thaken down: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...
http://www.wral.com/discovery-an-asteroid-with-rings/1351096...
Edit: Not sure if I am being downvoted for stating the obvious or the incredulous :)
If this is an artificial item - a big honking if - there's not enough known about it to draw any significant conclusions. It could be their version of a flag. It could be a relay satellite. It could be a billboard to advertise McJxrqins.
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(insert as you like from the below, or reply with your own)
• the body of Jimmy Hoffa
• Saddam's WMD's [0]
• Elvish Presley
• Michael Jackson
• the needed parts to finish Healthcare.gov
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[0] I know, I know. They went to Syria, and Isreal destroyed some of them. It's a joke.
Or better, anything can orbit gravitationally the lightest of objects (as long as things like electrostatic forces are not overwhelming it)
Anything with a velocity bigger than a certain velocity (not sure how this is called - orbital velocity) and smaller than the escape velocity can orbit something in space (in this case atmosphere is not a problem)
When theories were built that way we used to call it "religion" not "science". Alien attributions seem pretty much a modern sci-fi/fantasy religion to me.
By the way, I find it a bit excessive that, if it is in fact this what they found, they set up a media embargo and everything. It's a pretty nice finding, but nothing massive.