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Kuiper Belt Objects
The Kuiper belt ( ) is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia, and water. The Kuiper belt is home to most of the objects that astronomers generally accept as dwarf planets: Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, and Makemake. Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe, may have originated in the region. The Kuiper belt is named in honor of the Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who conjectured the existence of the belt in 1951. There were researchers before ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuiper Belt Plot Objects Of Outer Solar System
Kuiper is a Dutch language, Dutch occupational surname meaning Cooper (profession), cooper. Common spelling variants include Kuyper, Kuipers, Kuijper, Kuijpers, Kuypers, and De Kuyper. Notable people with the name include: Kuiper *Adrian Kuiper (born 1959), South African cricketer *Barend Klaas Kuiper (1877–1961), Dutch-American historian *David Kuiper (born 1980), Dutch rower *Duane Kuiper (born 1950), American baseball player *Edith Kuiper (born 1960), Dutch economist *F. B. J. Kuiper (1907–2003), Dutch Indologist *Gerard Kuiper (1905–1973), Dutch-American astronomer after whom the Kuiper belt was named *Glen Kuiper (born 1963) American broadcaster *Hennie Kuiper (born 1949), Dutch cyclist *J. P. Kuiper (1922–1985), Dutch professor of social medicine *Michael Kuiper (born 1989), Dutch martial artist *Nick Kuiper (born 1982), Canadian ice hockey player *Nicky Kuiper (born 1989), Dutch footballer *Nicolaas Kuiper (1920–1994), Dutch mathematician, known for Kuiper's test, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarf Planet
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept was adopted in 2006. Dwarf planets are capable of being geologically active, an expectation that was borne out in 2015 by the ''Dawn (spacecraft), Dawn'' mission to and the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto. planetary geology, Planetary geologists are therefore particularly interested in them. Astronomers are in general agreement that at least the List of possible dwarf planets#Likeliest dwarf planets, nine largest candidates are dwarf planets – in rough order of diameter, , , , , , , , , and . A considerable uncertainty remains over the tenth largest candidate , which may thus be co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
15760 Albion
15760 Albion ( provisional designation ) was the first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered after Pluto and Charon. Measuring about 108–167 kilometres in diameter, it was discovered in 1992 by David C. Jewitt and Jane X. Luu at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. After the discovery, they dubbed the object "Smiley" and it was shortly hailed as the tenth planet by the press. It is a "cold" classical Kuiper belt object and gave rise to the name ''cubewano'' for this kind of object, after the portion of its designation. Decoding its provisional designation, "QB1" reveals that it was the 27th object found in the second half of August of that year. As of January 2018, around 2,400 further objects have been found beyond Neptune, a majority of which are classical Kuiper belt objects. It was named after Albion from William Blake's mythology. Naming This minor planet was named after Albion from the complex mythology of English poet and painter William Blake (1757–1827). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julio Ángel Fernández
Julio Ángel Fernández Alves (born 5 April 1946) is a Uruguayan astronomer and teacher, member of the department of astronomy at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo. He is also a member of PEDECIBA, (the program for development of basic sciences in Uruguay), and the Uruguayan Society of Astronomy. From 2005 to 2010, he was the Dean of the Universidad de la Republica's Faculty of Sciences. The asteroid 5996 Julioangel, discovered in 1983, was named after him. He is an active researcher of the Researchers National System of Uruguay. Fernandez is member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Kuiper belt In 1980, in his paper ''On the existence of a comet belt beyond Neptune'', Fernández proposed that periodic comets arrived too frequently into the inner Solar System to be accounted for solely by having arrived from the Oort cloud, and that a trans-Neptunian belt of comets at around 50 AU would be required to explain them. Subsequent computer mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Edgeworth
Kenneth Essex Edgeworth (26 February 1880 – 10 October 1972) was an Irish army officer, engineer, economist and independent theoretical astronomer. He was born in Street, County Westmeath. Edgeworth is best known for proposing the existence of a disc of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune in the 1930s. Observations later confirmed the existence of the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt in 1992. Those distant solar system bodies, including Pluto, Eris and Makemake, are now grouped into the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, or Kuiper belt. Early life Edgeworth was born on 26 February 1880 at Daramona House Street, County Westmeath. His parents were Elizabeth Dupré ((née Wilson) 1852-1929) and land agent Thomas Newcomen Edgeworth (1850–1931) both of Anglo-Irish ancestry. He was from one of 'the archetypal gentleman literary and scientific families' (McFarland, 1996). His father's family was from Kilshruley, Ballinalee, County Longford near Edgeworthstown, whose estates were the seats of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerard Kuiper
Gerard Peter Kuiper ( ; born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper, ; 7 December 1905 – 23 December 1973) was a Dutch-American astronomer, planetary scientist, selenographer, author and professor. The Kuiper belt is named after him. Kuiper is considered by many to be the father of modern planetary science. Early life and education Kuiper, the son of a tailor in the village of Tuitjenhorn in North Holland, had an early interest in astronomy. He had extraordinarily sharp eyesight, allowing him to see with the naked eye Apparent magnitude, magnitude 7.5 stars, about four times fainter than those visible to normal eyes. He studied at Leiden University in 1924, where at the time a very large number of astronomers had congregated. He befriended fellow students Bart Bok and Pieter Oosterhoff, and was taught by Ejnar Hertzsprung, Antonie Pannekoek, Willem de Sitter, Jan Woltjer (astronomer), Jan Woltjer, Jan Oort, and the physicist Paul Ehrenfest. He received his Candidate (degree), c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoebe (moon)
Phoebe ( ) is the most massive irregular satellite, irregular Moons of Saturn, satellite of Saturn with a mean diameter of . It was discovered by William Henry Pickering on 18 March 1899 from photographic plates that had been taken by DeLisle Stewart starting on 16 August 1898 at the Boyden Observatory, Boyden Station of the Carmen Alto Observatory near Arequipa, Peru. It was the first natural satellite to be discovered photographically. Phoebe was the first target encountered upon the arrival of the ''Cassini–Huygens, Cassini'' spacecraft in the Saturn system in 2004, and is thus unusually well-studied for an irregular moon of its size. ''Cassinis trajectory to Saturn and time of arrival were chosen to permit this flyby. After the encounter and its insertion into orbit, ''Cassini'' did not go much beyond the orbit of Iapetus (moon), Iapetus. Phoebe is roughly spherical and has a differentiated interior. It was spherical and hot early in its history and was battered out of rou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 times more massive. Even though Saturn is almost as big as Jupiter, Saturn has less than a third its mass. Saturn orbits the Sun at a distance of , with an orbital period of 29.45 years. Saturn's interior is thought to be composed of a rocky core, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and an outer layer of gas. Saturn has a pale yellow hue, due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current in the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth because of Saturn's greater size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is about a twen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triton (moon)
Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune. It is the only moon of Neptune massive enough to be list of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System, rounded under its own gravity and hosts a atmosphere of Triton, thin, hazy atmosphere. Triton orbits Neptune in a retrograde orbit—revolving in the opposite direction to the parent planet's rotation—the only large moon in the Solar System to do so. Triton is thought to have once been a dwarf planet from the Kuiper belt, gravitational capture, captured into Neptune's orbit by the latter's gravity. At in diameter, Triton is the list of natural satellites#List, seventh-largest moon in the Solar System, the second-largest planetary moon in relation to its primary (after Earth's Moon), and larger than all of the known dwarf planets. The mean density is , reflecting a composition of approximately 30–45% ice, water ice by mass, with the rest being mostly rock and metal. Triton is differentiated, with a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Satellite
A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are colloquially referred to as moons, a derivation from the Moon of Earth. In the Solar System, there are six planetary satellite systems containing 418 known natural satellites altogether. Seven objects commonly considered dwarf planets by astronomers are also known to have natural satellites: , Pluto, Haumea, , Makemake, , and Eris. As of January 2022, there are 447 other minor planets known to have natural satellites. A planet usually has at least around 10,000 times the mass of any natural satellites that orbit it, with a correspondingly much larger diameter. The Earth–Moon system is a unique exception in the Solar System; at 3,474 kilometres (2,158 miles) across, the Moon is 0.273 times the diameter of Earth and about of its mass. The next largest ratios are the N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Makemake
Makemake ( minor-planet designation: 136472 Makemake) is a dwarf planet and the largest of what is known as the classical population of Kuiper belt objects, with a diameter approximately that of Saturn's moon Iapetus, or 60% that of Pluto. It has one known satellite. Its extremely low average temperature, about , means its surface is covered with methane, ethane, and possibly nitrogen ices. Makemake shows signs of geothermal activity and thus may be capable of supporting active geology and harboring an active subsurface ocean. Makemake was discovered on March 31, 2005, by a team led by Michael E. Brown, and announced on July 29, 2005. It was initially known as and later given the minor-planet number 136472. In July 2008, it was named after Makemake, a creator god in the Rapa Nui mythology of Easter Island, under the expectation by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that it would prove to be a dwarf planet. History Discovery Makemake was discovered on March 31, 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
50000 Quaoar
Quaoar ( minor-planet designation: 50000 Quaoar) is a ringed dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, a ring of many icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. It has an elongated ellipsoidal shape with an average diameter of , about half the size of the dwarf planet Pluto, and is a possible dwarf planet. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Quaoar's surface contains crystalline water ice and ammonia hydrate, which suggests that it might have experienced cryovolcanism. A small amount of methane is present on its surface, which is only retained by the largest Kuiper belt objects. Quaoar has one known moon, Weywot, which was discovered by Brown in February 2007. Both objects were named after mythological figures from the Native American Tongva people in Southern California. Quaoar is the Tongva creator deity and Weywot is his son. In 2023, astronomers announced the discovery of two thin rings orb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
