Renobulus writes: "The BBC has this story about a giant asteroid orbiting near Pluto. This article also talks about Pluto's role as a planet in our solar system. This asteroid could help prove scientists belief that Pluto is only a minor planet."
Not really an asteroid
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
It's actually a Kupier Belt object, which isn't really an asteroid. It's made up mostly of ice, whereas an asteroid is made up of rock or metal. It is however the largest minor planet
More Information at Space.com
by
dragons_flight
·
· Score: 3, Informative
This article on Space.com has considerably more detail about the asteroid and the techniques used for its discovery and measurement.
Included in their discussion is a debate about whether it really is the largest asteroid. The measurement of its radius relies on a reasonable, but not well established, guess for the objects reflectivity of sun light. Also some people claim that since objects at that distance are largely ice, that it may not qualify as a true asteroid (i.e. made of rock).
Astronomers have such HUGE amounts of data collected I'm glad to see that automated techniques are aiding in discovering new objects.
Virtual Telescope
by
Alien54
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The history of the solar system seems like it was a lot more complex than people have been thinking.
Pluto is seen as a escaped moon of Neptune.
Evidence suggests that the Solar systyem underwent major changes about 65 million years ago. The dinosaurs seem to have been minor collateral damage.
Mars, for example, has a whole bunch of craters that cover just one side of the planet. The other half is pretty clean. Sounds like something went BOOM.
So oddities like asteroids orbiting pluto etc are par for the course.
What I find interesting is that The observations were carried out at the European Southern Observatory with the world's first operational "virtual telescope", Astrovirtel.
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This article was also on CNN.com and Space.com yesterday as well, to name a few.
Ceres has a diameter of about 950 kilometers (590 miles), and is still (and always will be) the largest main belt asteroid. This new object, known as 2001 KX76 (representing its discovery year and code), is a member of the Kuiper Belt. Kuiper Belt Objects are the primitive remenants of the prestellar cloud that formed our solar system. They have been expected by planetary astronomers for years, and in the last few years, hundreds have been found, although this is the largest found to date (excluding Pluto). It is anticipated that hundreds of thousands more might be found as better telescopes are constructed.
Re:Classification is Arbitrary
by
Waffle+Iron
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· Score: 3, Informative
Whether we decide to classify it as a 'major planet', 'minor planet', 'planetoid', or 'planitessimal', is irrelevant.
Exactly. In fact, the situation is a tautology. If people stop squabbling and agree on a word to classify Pluto (it doesn't matter if it's "planet", "minor planet", "flerbage" or whatever), then by definition that word includes Pluto-like objects.
Pluto itself remains the same no matter what we call it.
Re:Mars Craters
by
Alien54
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Which side of mars is that? are you suggesting the whole exploding 5th planet thing? having craters on half the planet would mean that
asteroids chose to strike mars between certain hours every day.. and not during other hours.. I'm not sure why but this doesn't quite make sense to me...
Not a problem. You can search on the string:
line dichotomy mars craters
and get all kinds of links at google.
The boundary of the crater disparity is at about 35 - 40 degres angle to the equator. There are these links that are interesting:
* http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/online.bks/mars/cha p12.htm - Part of a book online - describe the conventional view of the dichotomy
This paper says that the impacts did not take place on a on a repeating basis, but was part of a one time event. Probably 65 million years ago.
There are other pieces of the puzzle that tie into this, available from good scientists, on the web.
* http://www.enterprisemission.com/tides.htm which is from the other side of the fence, but is not badly written.
There are a lot of PDFs for download as well from many research papers.
Remarkably, at a June, 2001 Earth Systems Processes Global Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, astrobiologist Bruce Runnegar of the University of California in Los Angeles presented some striking independent evidence that "something" major happened in the solar system ~65 million years ago. Runnegar and his colleagues had previously identified evidence of a 400,000-year cycle in ancient ocean sediments, indicating changes in Earth's climate corresponding to natural
fluctuations in its orbit. To probe this cycle's influence on Earth's climate over the past 100 million years, Runnegar's team constructed computer models based on known variations in planetary orbits, their proximity to the Sun and their interactive perturbations. In running the models, they found that the known fluctuations of the solar system's dynamics remained constant going back to 65 million years ago. Then, to their surprise, the frequency of perturbations to the orbits of the inner planets suddenly changed
This was on CNN, etc at the beginning of the summer. Simple searches for "Runnegar" yeild good results on CNN, and in general. for example: http://cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/07/05/dinosaur.wobb le/index.html
- - - Radio Free Nation is a news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
-- "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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This article on Space.com has considerably more detail about the asteroid and the techniques used for its discovery and measurement.
Included in their discussion is a debate about whether it really is the largest asteroid. The measurement of its radius relies on a reasonable, but not well established, guess for the objects reflectivity of sun light. Also some people claim that since objects at that distance are largely ice, that it may not qualify as a true asteroid (i.e. made of rock).
Astronomers have such HUGE amounts of data collected I'm glad to see that automated techniques are aiding in discovering new objects.
Pluto is seen as a escaped moon of Neptune.
Evidence suggests that the Solar systyem underwent major changes about 65 million years ago. The dinosaurs seem to have been minor collateral damage.
Mars, for example, has a whole bunch of craters that cover just one side of the planet. The other half is pretty clean. Sounds like something went BOOM.
So oddities like asteroids orbiting pluto etc are par for the course.
What I find interesting is that The observations were carried out at the European Southern Observatory with the world's first operational "virtual telescope", Astrovirtel.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This article was also on CNN.com and Space.com yesterday as well, to name a few.
Ceres has a diameter of about 950 kilometers (590 miles), and is still (and always will be) the largest main belt asteroid. This new object, known as 2001 KX76 (representing its discovery year and code), is a member of the Kuiper Belt. Kuiper Belt Objects are the primitive remenants of the prestellar cloud that formed our solar system. They have been expected by planetary astronomers for years, and in the last few years, hundreds have been found, although this is the largest found to date (excluding Pluto). It is anticipated that hundreds of thousands more might be found as better telescopes are constructed.
Exactly. In fact, the situation is a tautology. If people stop squabbling and agree on a word to classify Pluto (it doesn't matter if it's "planet", "minor planet", "flerbage" or whatever), then by definition that word includes Pluto-like objects.
Pluto itself remains the same no matter what we call it.
Not a problem. You can search on the string:
line dichotomy mars craters
and get all kinds of links at google. The boundary of the crater disparity is at about 35 - 40 degres angle to the equator. There are these links that are interesting:
* http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/online.bks/mars/cha p12.htm - Part of a book online - describe the conventional view of the dichotomy
This paper says that the impacts did not take place on a on a repeating basis, but was part of a one time event. Probably 65 million years ago. There are other pieces of the puzzle that tie into this, available from good scientists, on the web.
* http://www.enterprisemission.com/tides.htm which is from the other side of the fence, but is not badly written.
There are a lot of PDFs for download as well from many research papers.
Remarkably, at a June, 2001 Earth Systems Processes Global Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, astrobiologist Bruce Runnegar of the University of California in Los Angeles presented some striking independent evidence that "something" major happened in the solar system ~65 million years ago. Runnegar and his colleagues had previously identified evidence of a 400,000-year cycle in ancient ocean sediments, indicating changes in Earth's climate corresponding to natural fluctuations in its orbit. To probe this cycle's influence on Earth's climate over the past 100 million years, Runnegar's team constructed computer models based on known variations in planetary orbits, their proximity to the Sun and their interactive perturbations. In running the models, they found that the known fluctuations of the solar system's dynamics remained constant going back to 65 million years ago. Then, to their surprise, the frequency of perturbations to the orbits of the inner planets suddenly changed
This was on CNN, etc at the beginning of the summer. Simple searches for "Runnegar" yeild good results on CNN, and in general. for example:b le/index.html
http://cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/07/05/dinosaur.wob
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"