Last month an asteroid in orbiting between Saturn and Uranus was discovered to hang a ring system. This asteroid is named Chariklo, and is part of a class of solar system bodies known as centaurs, which are thought o have originated in the Kuiper belt. The rings are thought to have formed after some slow solar system collision scattered debris around Chariklo. The reason the collision must have been slow is that Chariklo is very small and thus has little gravity, and faster moving objects would have escaped its force of gravity quite easily. Besides being quite a shock, this could never happen in the inner solar system near the asteroid belt. This is because the asteroid belt and inner planets are much more affected by solar wind, and if Chariklo were in that region the solar wind would have blown the tiny ring particles away. What they have not yet discovered is the shepherd moons, which scientists believe is the only explanation to rings forming on such a small system. A shepherd moon confines the small particles in orbit and is thought to be about as massive as both rings combined. The other possible option is that the rings are very young and time has not spread them out as expected.