Kuiper belt - Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt (sometimes called the Edgeworth belt or Edgeworth-Kuiper belt) is an area of the solar system extending from within the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to 50 AU from the sun. Over 800 Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) (which are also trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs)) have been discovered in the belt. The largest are Pluto and Charon, but since the year 2000 other large objects that approached their size were identified. Quaoar, discovered in 2002, is half the size of Pluto and is larger than the largest asteroid 1 Ceres. Other known KBOs are progressively smaller. The exact classification of these objects is unclear, since they are probably fairly different from the asteroids of the inner solar system. Most KBOs are lumps of ice.
Gerard Kuiper - Gerard Kuiper Gerard Peter Kuiper, born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper (1905 - 1973) was an American astronomer, born in the Netherlands. Kuiper has discovered a number of satellites (moons) of the planets in the solar system, and suggested the existence of a belt outside Neptune's orbit, now named the Kuiper belt. In the 1960s, Kuiper also helped identifying landing sites on the moon for the Apollo program. External Link Gerard Peter Kuiper: NASA KAO's Namesake.
Asteroid belt - Asteroid belt The "Asteroid Belt" is a region of the solar system falling roughly between the planets Mars and Jupiter where the greatest concentration of asteroid orbits can be found. The term asteroid belt can also generally describe a region of concentrated asteroids with similar orbits. Origin It is believed that, during the first million years of the solar system history, planets formed by accretion of planetesimals. Repeated collisions led to the familiar rocky planets and to the gas giants cores. However, in this zone of the system the strong gravity of Jupiter inhibited the final stages and the planetesimals could not form a single planet. The planetesimals instead continued to orbit the Sun as before. In this sense, the asteroid belt can be considered a relict.
Pluto Kuiper Express - Pluto Kuiper Express The Pluto Kuiper Express mission, originally designated the Pluto Fast Flyby, was designed to fly by and make studies of the planet Pluto and its satellite Charon in 2012 and fly on to encounter one or more of the large bodies in the Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Pluto. It was cancelled for budgetary reasons, and a new mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt called New Horizons replaced it. Pluto Kuiper Express' major science objectives were to: characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and Charon map the composition of Pluto's surface determine the composition and structure of Pluto's atmosphere. The mission was intended to reach Pluto before the tenuous Plutonian atmosphere can refreeze onto the surface as the planet recedes.
Jupiter (planet) - moons of each group. In addition to the 16 moons listed below there are a further 42 tiny moons in long, eccentric, retrograde orbits around Jupiter, most no larger than a kilometer or two in diameter. All of these moons are thought to be captured asteroidal or perhaps cometary bodies, possibly fragmented into several pieces, but very little is actually known about them. The total number of known moons of Jupiter is therefore 52, currently the most of any planet in the solar system. Many additional tiny moons may exist that have not yet been discovered. On April 4, 2003, the official moon count for Jupiter jumped to 58. The latest discoveries were made by a team led by Scott Sheppard and David Jewitt at the University of Hawaii, along with.
Ixion - to Zeus. Zeus, being quite the womanizer himself, humored Ixion's desires, and let him conjugate with a likeness of Hera made out of clouds. When Ixion came down to earth, he bragged to other mortals about sleeping with the queen of the gods. Zeus punished him for his boasts, by lashing him to an eternally spinning wheel. 28978 Ixion is a Kuiper belt object discovered in 2001 with a diameter of approximately 760 km and a mean orbital radius of 39.31 AU..
Earth - claimed by most, but can vary Note: boundary situations with neighboring states prevent many countries from extending their fishing or economic zones to a full 200 NM; 43 nations and other areas that are landlocked include Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Holy See (Vatican City), Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Paraguay, Rwanda, San Marino, Slovakia, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tajikistan, The Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, West Bank, Zambia, Zimbabwe Climate Two large areas of polar climates separated by two rather narrow temperate zones from a wide equatorial band of tropical to subtropical climates. Precipitation patterns vary widely, ranging from several meters of water per year to less than a.
Uranus (planet) - is tilted almost 60° with respect to the axis of rotation. It is probably generated by motion at relatively shallow depths within Uranus. Neptune has a similarly displaced magnetic field, suggesting that this is not necessarily a result of Uranus's axial tilt. The magnetotail is twisted by the planet's rotation into a long corkscrew shape behind the planet. The magnetic field's source is unknown; the electrically conductive, super-pressurized ocean of water and ammonia once thought to lie between the core and the atmosphere now appears to be nonexistent. The exploration of Uranus Uranus was the first planet discovered that was not known in ancient times, though it had actually been seen many times before but ignored as simply another star (the earliest recorded sighting was in 1690 when John Flamsteed cataloged.
Epsilon Eridani - fact that it is very young; only about half a billion years old. It is for this reason why it is now considered unlikely to have intelligent life in its system. Tau Ceti is a much better candidate. Both stars appear deficient in iron. In 1998, a dust disk was discovered around the star. It is about the distance the Kuiper belt is from our sun. There are clumps in the dust ring which may suggest that another planet orbits the star, causing the clumps through resonance. In 2000 a Jupiter-like planet was discovered (or confirmed) as being in orbit around the star. Its mean distance is 3.3 AU and its mass is estimated by the astronomer George Gatewood as 1.2 times the mass of Jupiter. Its orbit is highly elliptical..
Double planet - cutoff point is when the common point that the two objects orbit around (the barycenter) is not located inside either body, in which case Pluto and Charon count as a double planet and Earth does not (the issue of whether Pluto is a planet at all or is instead simply a large Kuiper belt object is a separate matter). There is no "official" definition, however; the term "double planet" is an informal one. Hypothetically, the moon/planet mass ratios between two bodies could vary anywhere between zero through one, where two planets of exactly the same mass orbit each other..
1 E12 m - AU -- Saturn-Sun distance 4500 million km -- 30 AU -- Neptune-Sun distance 4500 million km -- 30 AU -- Inner radius of Kuiper belt 7300 million km -- Maximum Pluto-Sun distance 7500 million km -- 50 AU -- Outer radius of Kuiper belt Distances longer than 1013 m See also: Orders of magnitude.
2060 Chiron - have developed a cometary coma at perihelion! Chiron is officially both a comet and an asteroid, more proof of the very fuzzy dividing line. Chiron is now classified as a centaur, the first of a class of objects orbiting between the outer planets. Centaurs are not in stable orbits and will eventually be removed by the giant planets. Chiron is probably a refugee from the Kuiper belt..
5145 Pholus - perihelion near the orbit of Jupiter and aphelion near the orbit of Pluto. It is believed to have originated as a Kuiper belt object..
Asteroid - the protoplanetary disc; which were not incorporated into planets during the system's formation. The vast majority of the asteroids are within the asteroid belt, with elliptical orbits between that of Mars and Jupiter. Some asteroids have moonss. The exact definition of an asteroid is unclear. Minor planets whose semi-major axes are beyond that of Jupiter, and which are primarly made of ice are either comets, Centaurss, or Trans-Neptunian objects. Meteoroids are solid objects in interplanetary space that are substantially smaller than asteroids (much less than 1 km in diameter). Meteoroids are typically boulder-sized or smaller. See Solar System for a complete taxonomy of objects in our system. This picture of Eros, taken on February 14, 2000, shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its.
Binary system - another into a mutual orbit. List of known binary systems Location Satellite A Satellite B Kuiper Belt Pluto Charon This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by fixing it..
Comet - (so it may often be a curved tail) and the ion tail (gas) always points directly away from the sun since gas is more strongly affected by the solar wind than dust is. The solid body of the comet itself is referred to as the nucleus. Both coma and tail are spectacularly illuminated by the Sun and are often visible from the Earth when a comet passes through the inner solar system, the dust reflecting sunlight directly and the gases glowing due to ionization. Most comets are too faint to be visible without the aid of a telescope. A few each decade become bright enough to be visible with the naked eye. Before the invention of the telescope, comets seemed to appear out of nowhere in the sky and gradually vanish.
Comet Halley - is the best-known and the brightest of the "short-period" comets from the Kuiper belt that visit the inner solar system in years or decades-long orbits rather than the millennia of comets from the Oort Cloud. Comet Halley as taken with the Halley Multicolor Camera on the ESA Giotto mission. The nucleus is sunlit from the left, and several bright jets of gas and dust are visible. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Early History 1.1 1910 Approach 1.2 1986 Approach Early History (mostly from the 1911 Encyclopedia, could do with updating) Having perceived that the elements of the comet of 1682 were nearly the same as those of two comets which had appeared respectively in 1531 and 1607, Halley concluded that all the three orbits belonged to the same comet with a.
Cubewano - Cubewano A cubewano is a main Kuiper belt object, orbiting beyond about 41 AU and not controlled by resonances with the outer planets. The odd name is derived from the first trans-Neptunian object found, 1992QB1 (nicknamed "Smiley"). Later objects were called "QB1-os", or cubewanos..
Timeline of solar system astronomy - the precession of the equinoxes, the libration of the Moon, and Saturn's rings in Mecanique Celeste 1843 - John Adams predicts the existence and location of Neptune from irregularities in the orbit of Uranus 1846 - Urbain Le Verrier predicts the existence and location of Neptune from irregularities in the orbit of Uranus 1846 - Johann Galle discovers Neptune 1846 - William Lassell discovers Triton 1849 - Edouard Roche finds the limiting radius of tidal destruction and tidal creation for a body held together only by its self gravity, called the Roche limit, and uses it to explain why Saturn's rings do not condense into a satellite 1856 - James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates that a solid ring around Saturn would be torn apart by gravitational forces and argues that Saturn's rings.
Timeline of planetary exploration - Helios 2 - 15 January 1976 - Closest Solar Approach Luna 24 - 9 August 1976 - Lunar Sample Return 1977 Voyager 2 - 20 August 1977 - Jupiter/Saturn/1st Uranus/1st Neptune Flyby Voyager 1 - 5 September 1977 - Jupiter/Saturn Flyby 1978 Pioneer Venus 1 - 20 May 1978 - Venus Orbiter Pioneer Venus 2 - 8 August 1978 - Venus Probes ISEE-3/ICE - 12 August 1978 - Comet Giacobini-Zinner and Comet Halley Flybys - 1st Comet flyby Venera 11 - 9 September 1978 - Venus Orbiter and Lander Venera 12 - 14 September 1978 - Venus Orbiter and Lander 1981 Venera 13 - 30 October 1981 - Venus Orbiter and Lander Venera 14 - 4 November 1981 - Venus Orbiter and Lander 1983 Venera 15 - 2 June 1983 -.
