Astronomy 1021 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Dwarf Planet, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud
20 Nov 2017
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Not enough gravity to pull themselves in from all sides. To determine it"s mass and gravitational pull, astronomers had to compare pluto to another object which was charon (pluto"s largest moon) Because pluto has a smooth surface, it is said that pluto is fairly young. Hss also found 4 more moons (they are very, very small) It is said that there is nothing else around pluto. Note: the more craters, the older the object. Ceres is the odd one out because it is located in the asteroid belt. We don"t yet know if makemake, eris, haumea has a spherical shape. They aren"t de ned as just planets because they share their orbit with other orbiting bodies. Between mars and jupiter we have the main asteroid belt. Note: the asteroids are actually really far apart, and astronomers don"t have to worry about bumping into them. One is just before/in front of jupiter"s orbit, and one is just behind its orbit.
