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Solar System Fossils Found By Hubble
segment writes "Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered three of the faintest and smallest objects ever detected beyond Neptune. Each lump of ice and rock is roughly the size of Philadelphia and orbits just beyond Neptune and Pluto, where they may have rested since the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. The objects reside in a ring-shaped region called the Kuiper Belt, which houses a swarm of icy rocks that are leftover building blocks, or "planetesimals," from the solar system's creation. The results of the search were announced by a group led by Gary Bernstein of the University of Pennsylvania at a meeting of NASA's Division of Planetary Sciences in Monterey, Calif."
I would fond it interesting how the scientists can be sure that there objects have originated when our solar system was created. Wouldn't it be also possible that the asteroids traveled vast distances, having originated in stellar events far away, and eventually gor captured by sub's gravity? This would be even more interesting for us, wouldn't it. I just would like to know if it would be feasible to launch a probe to one of those objects, as to look of what materials it is composed. But can you hit an object that small across this distance and, even more land a probe safely there?
".Sig Stealer" was here
Comets are as much the remnants of the formation of teh solar system as the belt is. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the belt is in face a string of comets whicha re being held in place by centripetal forces. Asteroid belts and such tend to hang around for that very reason. It's the natural order of things. Everything is in a constant state of transition and by definition, once it reaches a more stable state, it is inclined not to leave that state, but remain in a state of stability. Thus, when the comets which reach the state of being in this belt, they are in a mroe stable state and tend to stay in it, compelled by the centripetal force to orbit regularly. Other comets which don't reach that state are more likely to collide with planets and such, since the stable belt is mainly stable due to the non-interferance of other spatial bodies such as the gravity of planets and their moons or other comets or meteors, asteroidsa and the other celestial "brik-a-brak" floating around in space. So when they are in the belt, they tend to remain in the belt and not to collide and be subsequently absorbed by planets and such. That's why we see these belts. They have stood the test of time. There are so many comets out there that if it weren't for these glimpses into the huge belts that lie in and outside of our solar system, we could nearly assume that the comets are as dense everywhere. Of course, that's not true because planets and moons invariably have gravity which attracts them, which is why you'll see quite a large number of craters on planets and very few regular comets which come close to them. Maybe that's why it's such a big occasion for us, when a regular comet like Halley's comet. Well, that's just my 0.02 money units.
This could be bad news for the New Horizons (Pluto-Kuiper Belt) mission, which plans to visit some as-yet undiscovered Kuiper belt objects after swinging by Pluto - but if there are a lot fewer than first thought..
Discovering many fewer Kuiper Belt Objects than was predicted makes it difficult to understand how so many comets appear near Earth since many comets were thought to originate in the Kuiper Belt,..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
The reminants of the big bang (or universal black hole collapse, as I like to think of it... but that's nonstandard) would be the background radiation, nothing more.
After the big bang, you had the cooling out of our different forces, the formation of subatomic particles, the formation of Hydrogen atoms, and then the formation of giant stars.
Those stars all exploded long ago, creating the wealth of other elements that we see today. Life may or may not have formed at that time, but if it did, it is my guess that all such lifeforms would have been destroyed in the supernovaes of the first generation of stars. Our solar system formed from the exploded remains of one or more of those.
All of which makes these fossils impressively old, the moreso because it is not inconcievable to me that bacteria could predate planetary formation. It would indeed be interesting to look at them, and see what we see.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The three new discoveries are about 42 AU from the Sun, in orbits that are about the same distance but less inclined (tipped) to the rest of the Solar System than Quaoar. They are not "plutinos".
Press releases are always skimpy on the real information; if you want the gory details, read the scientific paper. There will be some articles in Science News, maybe other places, at an intermediate level.