ASTR 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 33: Kuiper Belt, Planet Nine, Double Planet
Document Summary
Orbit of short period comets are highly elliptical, prograde, and incline: look a lot like the kuiper belt objects, but more elliptical. Pluto: larger than pluto, in a retrograde orbit around neptune. Most likely was captured: equator is reddish, poles are white, has a very thin atmosphere, frozen lakes, not a lot of craters, linear, fault like patterns, geysers of liquid nitrogen, tidal heating drives geological activity. Pressure at surface is 1/50,000 of that on earth. At the moment, the orbit is circular. No(cid:449) there"s really (cid:374)o heat: but it"s still a little a(cid:272)ti(cid:448)e, discovered in 1930. Looking for object perturbing neptune: moons, orbit. Two moons are in a 2:3 resonance. Takes 248 years: can learn things about the surfaces because charon and pluto will eclipse each other. Can make a map of what it really looks like: double planet. Center of mass is between pluto and charon: took 9 . 5 years to get to pluto, pluto.
