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Pluto and other KBO’s

Pluto and other KBO’s. (Kuiper Belt Objects). 1. Why should we be interested in these distant, very small bodies?. Because they’re very cold and very far from the sun, they contain material almost unaltered since the formation of the solar system.

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Pluto and other KBO’s

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  1. Pluto and other KBO’s (Kuiper Belt Objects) 1

  2. Why should we be interested in these distant, very small bodies? • Because they’re very cold and very far from the sun, they contain material almost unaltered since the formation of the solar system. • They’re “fossils” that can give us information about the early conditions while the solar system was forming. 2

  3. Pluto – now a Dwarf PlanetCharon – no longer a moon Pluto Charon Mass (% of earth) 0.21% 0.027% Radius 1195 km 593 km (% of earth) 18.7% 9.3% Density (kg/m3) 1750 1850 3

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  5. Chemical Composition • Likely, a small rocky/metallic core surrounded by a thick mantle of water, methane, ammonia, and nitrogen ices, similar to the moons of Saturn and Uranus. 5

  6. Atmosphere • Pluto has a very thin (3 microbar) atmosphere of N2 and methane (CH4). • At an average temperature of 50K, the atmosphere lies frozen on Pluto’s surface at aphelion, but vaporizes at perihelion. 6

  7. Which is a betterrepresentationof what Pluto looks like? 7

  8. The best available map of Pluto. 8

  9. Pluto / Charon Orbit Perihelion: 4.4 billion km 30.2 A.U. Aphelion: 7.4 billion km 48.5 A.U. Average: 5.9 billion km 39.5 A.U. Eccentricity: 0.249 Inclination of Orbit to Ecliptic: 17.2o Orbital Period: 248 years Orbital velocity: 4.7 km/s 9

  10. Does Pluto come inside Neptune’s orbit? At perihelion, Pluto is 4,436,000,000 km. At aphelion, Neptune is 4,545,000,000 km. For about 20 years of every 248, Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune’s aphelion, but it’s rarely closer to the sun than Neptune’s actual position. Because of the tilt of Pluto’s orbit, there is no chance of a collision. 10

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  12. Pluto’s orbit as seen from the ecliptic, outsidethe solar system. 12

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  14. Pluto’s Rotation & Charon’s Orbit • Pluto is tidally locked with its largest moon, Charon. • Both bodies always keep the same face towards the other. • Pluto’s rotational period is the same as Charon’s orbital period: 6.4 days. • Orbital distance: 19,600 km (only 8 DP) • Charon’s orbit is tilted 122o to the ecliptic. 14

  15. From our viewpoint, Pluto and Charon regularly eclipse one another. This gives us an opportunity to measure their diameters and check for atmospheres. 15

  16. Pluto’s other moons • Recently, 2 other small moons were discovered. (Announced Oct. 31, 2005) • Nix (goddess of darkness & mother of Charon. The original spelling was Nyx, but that name had already been given to an asteroid, so the spelling was changed slightly.) • Hydra (9-headed dragon which guarded the underworld) 16

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  20. Pluto’s Discovery • Clyde Tombaugh, 1930, at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Az. • Blink comparator showed moving objects. • Tombaugh reviewed 240,000 pairs of photographs. 20

  21. Tombaugh was a talentedamateur astronomer. He discovered Pluto beforeattending college. 21

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  23. A blink comparator rapidly shifts back and forth between 2 photos. Moving objects “blink” back and forth. 23

  24. What is the Kuiper Belt? • The Kuiper Belt is a torus of Pluto-sized bodies and comets that never accreted into larger planets. • Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO’s) are also called Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO’s), and “Plutons”. Over 800 of these objects have been discovered. 24

  25. and KBO’s 25

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  27. Other Kuiper Belt ObjectsRecently Discovered 2003 UB313 or Eris (goddess of discord) and its moon Dysnomia (lawlessness). • 557 year orbit, currently at aphelion (98 AU) • 2400 km diameter (slightly larger than Pluto) • discovered by Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz 27

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  30. 2003 EL61 Perihelion:35 AU 30

  31. Future Missions to Pluto & the K.B. • New Horizons Mission • launched January 19, 2006 • will fly by Jupiter on February 28, 2007 • closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015. • cameras, spectrometer, atmosphere instrument, solar wind & ion particle instrument, dust analyzer 31

  32. New Horizons website: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ 32

  33. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/ http://yesserver.space.swri.edu/yes2004/GROUP/grouppage.html http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2005/19/images/ http://hal.physast.uga.edu/ http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect19/Sect19_20.html http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast221/lectures/lec15.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads/ub313_pluto_earth.jpg http://www.star.le.ac.uk/edu/Solar_System.shtml http://www.urania.be/sterrenkunde/images/pluto-kaart-groot.jpg http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060623-pluto_2.html http://www.crystalinks.com/plutotombaugh.jpg http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/tombaugh.html http://www.lowell.edu/Public/ptele2005tourbytalex.jpg http://perso.orange.fr/pgj/planetes/pluto-iotw_20050217.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_UB313 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EightTNOs.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TheKuiperBelt_Orbits_2003EL61.svg http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/1352/1384752/image/kuiper_belt_location.gif http://mf.dfs.org.yu/mf/99/kuiper-belt.gif http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ 33

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