Study Points ⚫ Name a Dwarf Planet

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Study Points ⚫ Name a Dwarf Planet ⚫ What is the major difference between a planet and a dwarf planet? Study Points ⚫ Name a dwarf planet. ⚫ Where are the dwarf planets in our solar system? ⚫ Distinguish between a meteor, a meteorite, and a meteoroid. ⚫ What is a "shooting star"? Why do we see it? On average, how big is one? ⚫ Why do we study meteorites? ⚫ What is a comet? ⚫ Describe a comet including the nucleus, head and tail. Why do we see a comet? ⚫ Roughly, how big are comets? ⚫ What is the Asteroid Belt? the Oort Cloud? the Kuiper Belt? Where is each located? ⚫ Why study comets? ⚫ What is a meteor shower? What is the comet connection to a meteor shower? What’s in our solar system? Sun Planets Terrestrial Jovian Dwarf Small Solar System Bodies Meteoroids Comets Dust Sun (future lecture after Test 2 all about the Sun) a. Most of mass (>99%) of solar system b. Star – produces own energy by fusion c. Hot http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/images/large/eit001_prev.jpg What’s in our solar system? Sun Planets Terrestrial Jovian http://www.techastronomy.com/UserFiles/2007/7/22/solar_system4(1).jpg From**KNOW Last THIS**Lecture: Terrestrial* Jovian* “Earth-like” “Jupiter-like” • Small, less massive • Large, massive • Close to Sun (warm) • Far from Sun (cold) • Rings • Big storms, turbulent atmosphere, belt rotation • Heavy elements • Hydrogen rich (light elements) • High density • Low density • Solid Surfaces • Gas and Liquid • Cratered • Few moons • Many moons • Thin atmospheres • Thick atmospheres • Weak magnetic fields • Large magnetic fields (some tilted) • Slow rotation • Fast rotation • Fast revolution (Kepler) • Slower revolution Terrestrial Jovian Writing Assignment – Part of Test 2: • Planet Highlights – 1 Terrestrial & 1 Jovian • See class website calendar for details • 20 points on next test • 5 Highlights for each planet • Print and bring to Test 2 What’s in our solar system? Sun Planets Terrestrial Jovian Dwarf What objects are planets and dwarf planets?* Question Planet Dwarf Planet Orbits Sun? X X Round? X X Not a moon? X X Cleared orbit? X Not cleared orbit? X International Astronomical Union 2006 http://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau0603/ Dwarf Planets* ⚫ Ceres (Asteroid Belt) ⚫ Pluto ⚫ Eris Plutoids ⚫ Makemake ⚫ Haumea Haumea ⚫ Telescopes discovered: DWARF PLANET HAUMEA HAS A RING (10/11/2017) ⚫ https://www.universetoday.com/137444/dwarf-planet-haumea-ring/ Pluto Location Pluto Orbit https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/ice-dwarf/en/ Pluto- Hard to classify Pluto and its largest moon, Charon (top left) https://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-big-moon-charon-reveals-a-colorful-and-violent-history Pluto Moons Keberus Styx http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120716.html Watch Motion Video of Pluto’s 5 Moons https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/ice-dwarf/en/ https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-pluto-k4.html Pluto: Planet or ? • Round • Moons • Orbit tilted to plane of solar system • Orbit more elliptical than other planets • Sometimes Pluto is closer to sun than Neptune • Denser than Jovians, less dense than Terrestrials • One of many objects orbiting sun beyond Neptune • It is a Dwarf Planet What are the names of the 2 areas in our solar system with asteroids or meteoroids?* ⚫ 1. ⚫ 2. ⚫ And where is each located?* ⚫ 3. location of 1. = ⚫ 4. location of 2. = Other Problem Objects Large meteoroids (asteroids) Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter Ceres (largest object in asteroid belt) Orbits sun Round Part of neighborhood of other objects =Dwarf Planet ~600 mi → Pictures and video from DAWN http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/ceres Planet Terrestrial (small, dense…) Jovian (large, gaseous…) Dwarf Current definition of Dwarf Planet* a. *Orbits a star b. *Round by own gravity c. *Has not cleared its neighborhood Dwarf Planets 1. Pluto 2. Eris 3. Haumea 4. Makemake 5. Ceres Dwarf Planets Dwarf Planet Candidates Dwarf Planet Locations* Asteroid Belt Kuiper Belt What’s in our solar system? Sun Planets Terrestrial Jovian Dwarf Small Solar System Bodies Meteoroids Comets Dust http://www.techastronomy.com/UserFiles/2007/7/22/solar_system4(1).jpg Small Solar System Bodies Meteoroids ▪ Definition: rocky matter in space* ▪ Small, rocky, oblong ▪ Mostly between Mars and Jupiter (Asteroid Belt) ▪ Asteroid – larger meteoroid Comets ▪ Definition: Icy object orbiting Sun* ▪ Some from beyond Neptune = Kuiper Belt Objects (40 AU) ▪ Some from farther out (1/4 way to next star) = Oort Cloud (1LY=63000AU) http://herschel.jpl.nasa.gov/solarSystem.shtml Kuiper Belt – Asteroid Belt – Many icy, rock Cluster of objects beyond meteoroids Neptune between Mars and Jupiter Oort Cloud – Icy matter, including many comets way out here http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Eris_ Orbit.svg/644px-Eris_Orbit.svg.png Planet 9? • Part of Kuiper Belt and influences other orbits • Video here with more info if interested: • http://www.universetoday.com/133555/pl anet-9-cant-run-forever-two-asteroids- give-clues/ http://www.universetoday.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Planet_Nine _animation.gif The Goblin – Potential Dwarf Planet http://earthsky.org/space/new-dwarf-planet-the-goblin-planet-x Meteoroids/Asteroids ⚫ *Orbit the sun ⚫ *Mostly between Mars and Jupiter (Some Gaspra throughout the solar system) ⚫ *Rocky, sometimes icy ⚫ Most are oblong ⚫ *Larger ones often called asteroids Meteoroids Small (grain/rice size) is most common* Largest is up to Minnesota size ⚫ Dwarf Planet (Largest in asteroid belt), Ceres, at ~600 mi. is a dwarf planet ⚫ 2nd largest asteroid, Vesta, at ~300 mi. but not as round or massive, so it remains an asteroid Vesta 2nd Largest Object in Asteroid Belt Planet or Dwarf planet or Asteroid? Vesta http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120919.html Lutetia from Rosetta/ESA ~120 km diameter (~70 mi) http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&type=I&mission=Rosetta&single=y&start=4 Mathilde Gaspra Ida ~12mi X 7 mi Gaspra (asterioid) Phobos (Mars’ moon) Deimos (Mars’ moon) Ida and Dactyl 36mi X 14 mi http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990807.html Eros 21 mi NEAR Shoemaker Asteroid Itokawa Japan’s Hayabusa 2005-10 http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1102.shtml Japan’s Hayabusa2 - 2018 ⚫ Watch https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/watch-japan-s- hayabusa-2-spacecraft-touch-down-asteroid-ncna979756 Landed on asteroid Feb. 2019 ⚫ 2 Bouncing rovers ⚫ Sample return mission to Earth in 2020 ⚫ Picture: ⚫ Itokawa and Ryugu What are NASA’s asteroid plans? ⚫ NASA asteroid mission ⚫ NASA asteroid spacecraft Asteroids Visited by Spacecraft NASA OSIRIS – Rex Asteroid Sample Return Mission NASA & ESA DART Mission to redirect an asteroid Meteoroid* Meteor* Meteorite* Rocky (icy) Matter glowing Meteor on matter orbiting in Earth’s Earth the Sun atmosphere Asteroid – Larger Meteoroid* Meteor (Shooting star, falling star)* ⚫ Small (grain to pea size)* ⚫ Fast (~50 mi/s) ⚫ Nearby (40 to 80 miles) ⚫ Collide with Earth’s atmosphere, glow ⚫ Most do not reach ground in tact ⚫ Add thousands of tons to Earth each year Fireball ⚫ Larger (marble size+) ⚫ Basketball size+ can reach ground Chelyabinsk Meteor ⚫ Feb. 15, 2013, speed of about 40 mi/s or 19 km/s ⚫ 1500 people injured, 13,000 tons, 20 m diameter ⚫ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpmXyJrs7iU Why study meteorites? ⚫ Composition and origin of Moon, Mars, and asteroids* Why study meteorites? ⚫ Estimate origin and age of our solar system* ⚫ 4.6 billion yrs* Why study meteorites? ⚫ Origin of life* Murchison meteorite (1969) Why study meteorites? ⚫ Possible catastrophes for us* Why study meteorites? Summary*: ⚫ Composition of Moon, Mars, & asteroids ⚫ Estimate origin and age of solar system ⚫ Origin of life ⚫ Possible catastrophes for us Barringer Crater in Winslow, AZ Meteor Crater in Winslow, AZ ⚫ Barringer Crater ⚫ Crater: 4/5 mile across, ~500 feet deep ⚫ Occurred ~50,000 years ago ⚫ Energy ~ 20 Megatons of TNT ⚫ Original meteor ~ house size (45m), 300,000 tons ⚫ Speed 40,000 mi/h Types of Meteorites Iron-Nickel Stony-Iron Stony Samples Comets* (cosmic snowball) * frozen gas, rock and dust *icy, fuzzy appearance, tails Bayeux Tapestry Comets Hang in sky for days/weeks* Comet McNaught http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070212.html Credit & Copyright: Minoru Yoneto Comet – orbit • Most have very elliptical orbits* • Some in plane of solar system but some not* Comet – why do we see them?* 1. Nears Sun & melts* 2. Debris reflects sunlight* 3. Sunlight blows debris away creating tail* Interactive comet orbit at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/comets/comet_model_interactive.html Comet Parts* Nucleus = Dense center Tail = gas/ice/dust blown back by sun Head = Nucleus + surrounding gas/ice/dust (Head and tail look dense but are not) Comet Nucleus– Original Description Frozen, dirty iceberg Comet Borrelly http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Other?subselect=Target:Borrelly Comet Nucleus– Additional Description ⚫ Many are frozen, dirty icebergs* ⚫ Others are loose collections of ice, gas, dust (Shoemaker- Levy 9 - 1993)* APOD – Wild 2 Comet Tempel 1 Size: ~1/3 Manhattan ~8kmX5km Average Comet Size (nucleus): few miles AverageSize ~ Comet1/2 Manhattan Tail: (14kmX4km)millions of miles Comet Parts Tail: Ions, gas, dust blown away by sun Two tails*: ⚫ Gas tail – Ions and gas, blown straight back from Sun (white) ⚫ Dust tail – Lags behind so looks curved (blue) Dust tail (blue) Gas tail (white) Period of Comet Long Period comets* Short Period comets* In plane of solar system Out of plane Halley (76 yr), Hale-Bopp (~4000 yr) Tempel-Tuttle (33 yr) http://www.eso.org/outreach/info-events/hale- bopp/comet-hale-bopp-summary-apr07-97-rw.html
Recommended publications
  • DOUGLAS P. HAMILTON Career Summary Professor, University of Maryland, Astronomy Dept., 9/1995 – Present
    CURRICULUM VITAE: DOUGLAS P. HAMILTON Career Summary Professor, University of Maryland, Astronomy Dept., 9/1995 { Present. Postdoctoral Scholar, MPI Kernphysik, Heidelberg Germany, 12/1993 { 9/1995. Cornell University, M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Physics, 8/1990 and 1/1994. Stanford University, B.S. in Physics with Distinction and Honors, 6/1988. Academic Honors NASA Group Achievement Award (New Horizons Team) 2016. U. Maryland Board of Regent's Faculty Award for Scholarship 2010. Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching 1997, 2008. U. Maryland Parents Association, Outstanding Faculty Nominee 2003. Certificate of Teaching Excellence 2003. Asteroid 12494 DH11 renamed Doughamilton 2000. Harold C. Urey Prize for Outstanding Research in Planetary Science 1999. NSF CAREER Award \Orbital Dynamics of Solar System Dust" 1998-2003. Professional Activities Co-Investigator with NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter. Collaborator with NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Co-Investigator with the Galileo Dust Detection System (DDS) Team. Reviewer on over 100 occasions for 18 scientific journals and 6 book publishers. Reviewer for 6 domestic and 3 foreign funding agencies. Member of IAU C-A4 Organizing Committee (2015-Present); DDA Vice Chair, Chair, Past Chair (2011-2014); DDA Student Participation Committee (2005-2007); AAS Shapley Lecturer (2006-Present); DDA Committee (2003-2005); DPS Prize Committee (2000-2003); AAS Millennium Speaker (2000-2003); Planetary Data System Rings Node Advisory Council (1997-Present); Icarus editorial board (1999- 2002); AAS, AGU, DDA, DPS and IAU societies. Research Interests Solar System Dynamics: Orbital Evolution; Celestial Mechanics; Resonances; Numerical Methods; Rotational Dynamics; Charged Particle Motion. Origins: Satellite and Ring Systems; The Solar System; Extrasolar Planets.
    [Show full text]
  • CHORUS: Let's Go Meet the Dwarf Planets There Are Five in Our Solar
    Meet the Dwarf Planet Lyrics: CHORUS: Let’s go meet the dwarf planets There are five in our solar system Let’s go meet the dwarf planets Now I’ll go ahead and list them I’ll name them again in case you missed one There’s Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Makemake and Haumea They haven’t broken free from all the space debris There’s Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Makemake and Haumea They’re smaller than Earth’s moon and they like to roam free I’m the famous Pluto – as many of you know My orbit’s on a different path in the shape of an oval I used to be planet number 9, But I break the rules; I’m one of a kind I take my time orbiting the sun It’s a long, long trip, but I’m having fun! Five moons keep me company On our epic journey Charon’s the biggest, and then there’s Nix Kerberos, Hydra and the last one’s Styx 248 years we travel out Beyond the other planet’s regular rout We hang out in the Kuiper Belt Where the ice debris will never melt CHORUS My name is Ceres, and I’m closest to the sun They found me in the Asteroid Belt in 1801 I’m the only known dwarf planet between Jupiter and Mars They thought I was an asteroid, but I’m too round and large! I’m Eris the biggest dwarf planet, and the slowest one… It takes me 557 years to travel around the sun I have one moon, Dysnomia, to orbit along with me We go way out past the Kuiper Belt, there’s so much more to see! CHORUS My name is Makemake, and everyone thought I was alone But my tiny moon, MK2, has been with me all along It takes 310 years for us to orbit ‘round the sun But out here in the Kuiper Belt… our adventures just begun Hello my name’s Haumea, I’m not round shaped like my friends I rotate fast, every 4 hours, which stretched out both my ends! Namaka and Hi’iaka are my moons, I have just 2 And we live way out past Neptune in the Kuiper Belt it’s true! CHORUS Now you’ve met the dwarf planets, there are 5 of them it’s true But the Solar System is a great big place, with more exploring left to do Keep watching the skies above us with a telescope you look through Because the next person to discover one… could be me or you… .
    [Show full text]
  • Sha'áłchíní Welcome to Science Class! What If… My Teacher Gets Kicked August 27, 2020 out of Zoom?
    April 26, 2021 Yá’át’ééh! sha'áłchíní Welcome to science class! What if… My teacher gets kicked August 27, 2020 out of Zoom? Then.. 1. If you get assigned as the host end the meeting. 2. Everyone immediately log out of Zoom. 3. Re-enter the class in 5 minutes. 4. If you do not get back into the meeting after continuous tries, class is cancelled. 5. Refer to agenda slides from website. In case Mrs. Yazzie loses internet connection: ● someone becomes host ● host monitors class until Mrs. Yazzie returns or four minutes have passed ● after 4 minutes host ends class ● everyone tries to re-enter class ● if Mrs. Yazzie doesn’t return after another 4 minutes, class is ended for the day Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. 1 Intervention 2 3 Science Project PTC 4-7PM Check-In 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 No school Intervention Science Project Check-In 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Intervention Science Project Due 40 points 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Intervention 25 26 27 28 29 30 Community Forum Last Intervention NO SCHOOL 5:30pm No School Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 Community Forum Last Day of Intervention 5:30PM No School 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Last Day of Science Zoom No School 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Mother’s No Zoom No Zoom No Zoom Return school laptops Day NWEA- Math NWEA-RDG NWEA-LANG No School 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 ALL WORK DUE No School 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Last Day of School 8th Grade Promotion Announcements ● April 28th-Community Forum ● Friday, April 30th-NO SCHOOL ● Thurs., May 27th- 8th Grade Promotion ● Thurs., May 27th - Last Day of School Agenda -Announcements and Calendar -Student Objective & Essential Question -Intro to Vocabulary -Dwarf Planets -Kahoot! On a scale from 1-10 with 10 being excellent, how was your weekend? UPDATE! ● INGENUITY-2nd Flight Success! ● Perseverance makes oxygen! Student Objective Day 1, Monday: I can describe the relationship of objects in the solar system.
    [Show full text]
  • A DEEP SEARCH for ADDITIONAL SATELLITES AROUND the DWARF PLANET HAUMEA Luke D
    The Astronomical Journal, 151:162 (10pp), 2016 June doi:10.3847/0004-6256/151/6/162 © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. A DEEP SEARCH FOR ADDITIONAL SATELLITES AROUND THE DWARF PLANET HAUMEA Luke D. Burkhart1,2, Darin Ragozzine1,3,4, and Michael E. Brown5 1 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; [email protected] 2 Yale University, Department of Physics, 217 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA 3 University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Science Center, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA 4 Florida Institute of Technology, Department of Physics and Space Sciences, 150 West University Boulevard, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA 5 California Institute of Technology, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, MC 150-21, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA Received 2015 July 10; accepted 2016 March 27; published 2016 May 27 ABSTRACT Haumea is a dwarf planet with two known satellites, an unusually high spin rate, and a large collisional family, making it one of the most interesting objects in the outer solar system. A fully self-consistent formation scenario responsible for the satellite and family formation is still elusive, but some processes predict the initial formation of many small moons, similar to the small moons recently discovered around Pluto. Deep searches for regular satellites around Kuiper belt objects are difficult due to observational limitations, but Haumea is one of the few for which sufficient data exist. We analyze Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, focusing on a 10- consecutive-orbit sequence obtained in 2010 July, to search for new very small satellites.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Origin of the Pluto System
    Pluto System After New Horizons 2019 (LPI Contrib. No. 2133) 7027.pdf ON THE ORIGIN OF THE PLUTO SYSTEM. M. Neveu1,2, R. M. Canup3, and K. M. Kratter4, 1U. of Mary- land, College Park, MD, USA. 2NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA ([email protected]). 3Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO, USA ([email protected]). 4Astronomy Department / Steward Observatory, U. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA ([email protected]). Introduction: We describe constraints and review Giant impact. The Pluto-Charon binary’s low mass models for the origin of the Pluto-Charon binary and ratio, high angular momentum, and close separation the small moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. We makes an impact on Pluto from a like-sized impactor also highlight open issues and discuss implications. its prime origin scenario [19-21 and references there- Observational Constraints: The heliocentric or- in]. This impact must predate Charon’s ≈4 Gyr old bit of the Pluto system at ≈40 AU is triply resonant surface [22]. At ≈40 AU, binary-forming impacts with Neptune’s orbit, involving mean motions (3:2), could have occurred every 100-300 Myr [23], and arguments of perihelion, and longitudes of ascending likely more often closer in. The mass ratio is repro- node. Therefore, Neptune likely shaped the Pluto sys- duced with an impact velocity only slightly higher tem’s eccentric and inclined heliocentric orbit [1,2]. than proto-Pluto’s escape velocity [20]. Two scenari- System dynamics. The plane of the Pluto system is os yield the observed mass and angular momentum highly oblique to its heliocentric orbit.
    [Show full text]
  • What Are Dwarf Planets?
    DID YOU KNOW? Pluto was visited by the New Horizons spacecraft on 14 July 2015, which was launched in 2006 What are dwarf planets? How these diminutive worlds diff er from their more expansive counterparts The big planets’ s their name suggests, dwarf planets little siblings share a lot of similarities with what we Meet the five celestial dwarves of our Solar System that have been discovered so far Awould generally refer to as ‘planets’. Ceres For instance, they orbit the Sun, and possess Ceres is located in the main asteroid belt Sun enough mass to assume an approximate between Mars and Jupiter, and was first Mercury spherical shape. However, it is their discovered in 1801. It is described as an Venus ‘embryonic planet’ due to the gravitational Earth diff erences that serve to draw a dividing line pull from nearby Jupiter preventing it from Mars between them and what astronomers gaining the mass required to complete its consider to be true planets. growth. CERES The most apparent observation is that dwarf planets are much smaller than conventional planets; even smaller than the Jupiter size of Earth’s Moon (although they can have moons themselves). Their size also means Pluto that they are unable to clear their orbital path, Originally designated as the ninth planet in Saturn as is the case with Pluto, which is restricted by the Solar System, Pluto was reclassified – controversially according to some – as a both the orbit of its larger neighbour Neptune dwarf planet in 2006 due to its failing to and assorted objects in the Kuiper Belt.
    [Show full text]
  • Team Persephone
    AIAA TEAM SPACE TRANSPORTATION DESIGN COMPETITION TEAM PERSEPHONE Submitted By: Chelsea Dalton Ashley Miller Ryan Decker Sahil Pathan Layne Droppers Joshua Prentice Zach Harmon Andrew Townsend Nicholas Malone Nicholas Wijaya Iowa State University Department of Aerospace Engineering May 10, 2018 TEAM PERSEPHONE Page I Iowa State University: Persephone Design Team Chelsea Dalton Ryan Decker Layne Droppers Zachary Harmon Trajectory & Propulsion Communications & Power Team Lead Thermal Systems AIAA ID #908154 AIAA ID #906791 AIAA ID #532184 AIAA ID #921129 Nicholas Malone Ashley Miller Sahil Pathan Joshua Prentice Orbit Design Science Science Science AIAA ID #921128 AIAA ID #922108 AIAA ID #761247 AIAA ID #922104 Andrew Townsend Nicholas Wijaya Structures & CAD Trajectory & Propulsion AIAA ID #820259 AIAA ID #644893 TEAM PERSEPHONE Page II Contents 1 Introduction & Problem Background 2 1.1 Motivation & Background . 2 1.2 Mission Definition . 3 2 Mission Overview 5 2.1 Trade Study Tools . 5 2.2 Mission Architecture . 6 2.3 Planetary Protection . 6 3 Science 8 3.1 Observations of Interest . 8 3.2 Goals . 9 3.3 Instrumentation . 10 3.3.1 Visible and Infrared Imaging|Ralph . 11 3.3.2 Radio Science Subsystem . 12 3.3.3 Atmosphere . 14 3.3.4 Solar Wind Around Pluto . 14 3.3.5 Descent Probes . 16 4 Trajectory 19 4.1 Interplanetary Trajectory Design . 19 4.2 Earth Launch . 19 4.2.1 Launch Vehicle Selection . 19 4.2.2 Launch Vehicle Integration . 22 4.2.3 Launch Characteristics . 23 4.3 Interplanetary Cruise . 25 4.4 Jupiter Gravity Assist . 26 4.5 Pluto Orbit Insertion . 28 5 Primary Mission 30 5.1 Design Methodology .
    [Show full text]
  • Mysterious Kerberos Revealed by New Horizons 23 October 2015
    Mysterious Kerberos revealed by New Horizons 23 October 2015 July. "Once again, the Pluto system has surprised us," said New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The new data, downlinked from the New Horizons spacecraft on Oct. 20, show that Kerberos appears to have a double-lobed shape, with the larger lobe approximately 5 miles (8 kilometers) across and the smaller lobe approximately 3 miles (5 kilometers) across. Science team members speculate from its unusual shape that Kerberos could have been formed by the merger of two smaller objects. The reflectivity of Kerberos's surface is similar to that of Pluto's other small moons (approximately 50 percent) and strongly suggests Kerberos, like the others, is coated with relatively clean water ice. Before the New Horizons encounter with Pluto, researchers had used Hubble Space Telescope images to "weigh" Kerberos by measuring its This image of Kerberos was created by combining four individual Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) gravitational influence on its neighboring moons. pictures taken on July 14, 2015, approximately seven That influence was surprisingly strong, considering hours before New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto, how faint Kerberos was. They theorized that at a range of 245,600 miles (396,100 km) from Kerberos. Kerberos was relatively large and massive, The image was deconvolved to recover the highest appearing faint only because its surface was possible spatial resolution and oversampled by a factor covered in dark material. But the small, bright- of eight to reduce pixilation effects. Kerberos appears to surfaced, Kerberos now revealed by these new have a double-lobed shape, approximately 7.4 miles (12 images show that that idea was incorrect, for kilometers) across in its long dimension and 2.8 miles reasons that are not yet understood.
    [Show full text]
  • Journey to the Edge of the Solar System
    Home / Space/ Special Reports Journey to the edge of the solar system History of a space discovery The existence of a planet beyond the orbit of Neptune had been predicted since the 1840s. Astronomers of the time, in fact, thought there was another large planet as yet unknown, situated on the edge of the Solar System, responsible for the disturbances and changes to the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Complex mathematical calculations based on the known mass of Neptune showed, in fact, that its orbit, as well as that of nearby Uranus, did not perfectly correspond to the predictions on the motion of bodies in the Solar System. The search for the ninth planet started seriously in the twentieth century. Percival Lowell, founder astronomer (1894) and director of the Observatory in Flagstaff (Lowell Observatory), Arizona, dedicated the last eight years of his life to the search for Planet X, a phrase used to indicate a planet beyond Neptune. Lowell died in 1916, without being able to prove the existence of the missing planet. We had to wait another 14 years and more precisely 18 February 1930 to demonstrate the existence of Planet X. On that day, the twenty four year old Clyde Tombaugh was intent on observing celestial bodies with a blink comparator, an instrument that allows images of the sky obtained at different times to be compared. Clyde Tombaugh, a Kansas farmer with a great passion for astronomy, while never having carried out any formal studies on the subject, had got a job at the Lowell Observatory, thanks to drawings of Mars and Jupiter, which he had made using a telescope he had built with pieces of old farm machinery.
    [Show full text]
  • The Orbits and Masses of Satellites of Pluto ⇑ Marina Brozovic´ A, , Mark R
    Icarus 246 (2015) 317–329 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Icarus journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/icarus The orbits and masses of satellites of Pluto ⇑ Marina Brozovic´ a, , Mark R. Showalter b, Robert A. Jacobson a, Marc W. Buie c a Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, USA b SETI, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA c SWRI, Boulder, CO 80302, USA article info abstract Article history: We present the numerically integrated orbits of Pluto’s satellites. The orbits have been fit to a data set that Received 20 December 2013 includes Earth-based and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) astrometry of Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Revised 6 March 2014 Styx, as well as the lightcurves from the Pluto–Charon mutual events. We also report new, 2010–2012 HST Accepted 7 March 2014 astrometry of all satellites including recently discovered Styx plus a pre-discovery detection of Kerberos in Available online 24 March 2014 2006. Pluto-relative data sets have been corrected for the center-of-light vs. center-of-mass offsets with the Pluto albedo model. The results are summarized in terms of the postfit residuals, state vectors, and Keywords: mean orbital elements. Orbits of Charon, Styx, Nix, and Kerberos are nearly circular, while Hydra’s shows Pluto, satellites a small eccentricity. All satellites are in near-resonance conditions, but we did not uncover any resonant Satellites, dynamics 3 À2 3 À2 3 À2 Orbit determination arguments. Our model yields 975.5 ± 1.5 km s , 869.6 ± 1.8 km s , and 105.9 ± 1.0 km s for the sys- tem’s, Pluto’s, and Charon’s GM values.
    [Show full text]
  • Obliquity Evolution of the Minor Satellites of Pluto and Charon
    MNRAS 000, 000{000 (0000) Preprint 24 April 2017 Compiled using MNRAS LATEX style file v3.0 Obliquity evolution of the minor satellites of Pluto and Charon Alice C. Quillen1, Fiona Nichols-Fleming1, Yuan-Yuan Chen1;2 and Beno^ıt Noyelles3 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 USA 2Key Laboratory of Planetary Sciences, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China 3Department of Mathematics and the Namur Centre for Complex Systems (naXys), University of Namur, 8 Rempart de la Vierge, Namur B-5000 Belgium 24 April 2017 ABSTRACT New Horizons mission observations show that the small satellites Styx, Nix, Ker- beros and Hydra, of the Pluto-Charon system, have not tidally spun-down to near synchronous spin states and have high obliquities with respect to their orbit about the Pluto-Charon binary (Weaver et al. 2016). We use a damped mass-spring model within an N-body simulation to study spin and obliquity evolution for single spinning non-round bodies in circumbinary orbit. Simulations with tidal dissipation alone do not show strong obliquity variations from tidally induced spin-orbit resonance crossing and this we attribute to the high satellite spin rates and low orbital eccentricities. How- ever, a tidally evolving Styx exhibits intermittent obliquity variations and episodes of tumbling. During a previous epoch where Charon migrated away from Pluto, the mi- nor satellites could have been trapped in orbital mean motion inclination resonances. An outward migrating Charon induces large variations in Nix and Styx's obliquities. The cause is a commensurability between the mean motion resonance frequency and the spin precession rate of the spinning body.
    [Show full text]
  • Cratering Rate on Pluto Produced by the Inner Trans-Neptunian Population M
    A&A 601, A116 (2017) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201628930 & c ESO 2017 Astrophysics Cratering rate on Pluto produced by the inner trans-Neptunian population M. F. Calandra1 and R. Gil-Hutton1; 2 1 Grupo de Ciencias Planetarias, Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito, UNLP, UNC, UNSJ, CONICET, Av. España 1512 sur, J5402DSP San Juan, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] 2 Universidad Nacional de San Juan, J. I. de la Roza 590 oeste, 5400 Rivadavia, San Juan, Argentina Received 13 May 2016 / Accepted 4 February 2017 ABSTRACT Aims. The aim of this work is to obtain the cratering rate on Pluto and to estimate the size distribution of the population in the inner trans-Neptunian region. Methods. We find the intrinsic collisional probability and the mean collision velocity for the interaction between Pluto and the projectile population crossing its orbit, using the L7 Synthetic Model from the CFEPS Project. The size distribution of this population is found using the smallest satellite of Pluto, Styx, as a constraint, because it survives the collisional process for the solar system age. Results. We find that the mean intrinsic collisional probability and mean collision velocity between Pluto and the projectile population −22 −2 −1 −1 are hPii = 1:3098 × 10 km yr and hVcoli = 2:005 ± 0:822 km s . If the projectile sample is separated between Plutinos and non-Plutinos and the intrinsic collisional probability of these sub-populations are taken into account, we find a ratio of approximately 20:1 in favor of non-Plutinos resulting in the greatest contribution to the cratering rate on Pluto.
    [Show full text]