-
-
- Kids are being taught today that our solar system has 8 planets, no longer 9 planets, because Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. Kids should be taught quite the opposite. They should learn to realize that our solar system not only has Pluto it has Quaoar, Orcus, Haumea, MakeMake, 2007 OR10, Salacia, 200MS4, Eris, Sedna, Ceres, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Mimas, Enceladus, Tehtys, ……………. and many more worlds yet be found in our very own solar system.
-
-. Many of these new discoveries listed are moons. Most are Kuiper belt objects. Kuiper belt objects are dwarf planets, or asteroids, or comets, that orbit the Sun beyond the planet Neptune. These new discoveries are occurring because technology, charge coupled devices, CCD's, are allowing astronomers to see ever smaller and fainter things.
-
-. The Kuiper belt contains 1000’s of objects orbiting the Sun. Many of the objects, 100‘s, are as large or larger than Pluto. The Kuiper belt is not just an icy world of asteroids. It has much more to offer.
-
-. Pluto is in a 2 : 3 orbital resonance with Neptune. Neptune orbits 3 times for every 2 orbits of Pluto. The more distant planets orbit more slowly. Pluto takes 248 years to complete one orbit. It is 67 Astronomical Units away from the Sun, that is 67 times farther away than the Earth. Here is a table of orbital distances in AU’s. One AU is 93,000,000 miles. But, to gain a perspective in relative terms, think of 1 AU as 1 mile, that is divide everything by 93 million. Here are the relative distances:
-
-------------------------------- Planet ----------------- AU’s as miles -----------
-
--------------------------------- Sun ------------------------- 0 -------------------
-------------------------------- Mercury ------------------- 1/3rd mile ---------
-------------------------------- Venus --------------------- 3/4th --------------
-------------------------------- Earth ------------------------ 1 -----------------
-------------------------------- Mars ----------------------- 1.52 -------------
-------------------------------- Jupiter --------------------- 5.2 ----------------
-------------------------------- Saturn --------------------- 9.58 --------------
-------------------------------- Uranus ------------------- 19.14 --------------
-------------------------------- Neptune ----------------- 30.2 --------------
-------------------------------- Pluto --------------------- 67 ----------------
-------------------------------- Kuiper Belt -------------- 38 to 100 -----------
-
-. Most of the large Kuiper belt objects orbit in the range of 38 to 48 astronomical units. Reflectivity of these larger objects surfaces cover the range from bright white to pitch black. The estimate is that 30 % of the objects have their own moons. Pluto has five moons Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, Hydra.
-
- If the Earth was 1 mile away from the Sun; the Sun would be 49 feet tall, about the height of the five-story building. The Earth 1 mile away, would be 2.7 inches diameter.
-
-. The great things about moons for astronomers is at Kepler’s equations can be used to calculate the mass of the objects once orbital periods of the moons are determined. Then, measuring diameters reveals the density of the objects. The densities range from pure ice to nearly solid rock. Here are the masses relative to the Earth’s:
-
--------------------------------- Planet ----------------- Mass, when Earth = 1 -----------
-
--------------------------------- Sun ---------------------- 330,000 -------------------
-------------------------------- Mercury ------------------- 5.5 % ---------
-------------------------------- Venus --------------------- 82 % --------------
-------------------------------- Earth ------------------------ 1 -----------------
-------------------------------- Mars ----------------------- 10.7 % -------------
-------------------------------- Jupiter --------------------- 317 ----------------
-------------------------------- Saturn ----------------------- 95 --------------
-------------------------------- Uranus ---------------------- 15 --------------
-------------------------------- Neptune -------------------- 17 --------------
-------------------------------- Pluto --------------------- 0.22 % ----------------
-------------------------------- Kuiper Belt -------------- ? -----------
-
-. The majority of the Kuiper belt objects are less than 300 kilometers in diameter, dark red, looking much like Saturn's moon Phoebe.
-
-. Larger objects greater than 400 kilometers diameter are usually brighter and rounder. More like Saturn's moons Mimas and Enceladus. These larger bodies may have been just large enough for heat formation to melt the ice to give them a smoother, brighter surface. If they have internal geology they should be classified as dwarf planets and not as asteroids.
-
-. Pluto is large enough to hold on to an atmosphere made of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. It may even have a nitrogen cycle, similar to Earth's water cycle. It could rain liquid nitrogen. Pluto is only 0.22 percent the mass of the Earth.
-
-. Pluto's moon Charon would itself be a dwarf planet if it were orbiting the Sun instead of orbiting Pluto.
-
-. Eris is this same size as Pluto, but, significantly more massive, greater density. It has a bright icy surface. It is 3 times farther from the Sun than Pluto. Eris looks like Neptune's moon Triton. Triton has a retrograde orbit around Neptune and most likely was captured from the Kuiper belt.
-
-. MakeMake is too small to hold on to its atmosphere. The surface is dominated by methane. There is likely some methane gas evaporation lying just above the surface.
-
-. Quaoar and 2007OR10 are smaller than MakeMake. They also have a methane surface.
-.
-. Sedna is the strangest with an elongated orbit never closer then 76 AU and as far as 1000 AU, but that will take another 5,000 years to get there
-
-. Orcus is still smaller and grayer than Quaoar and has ammonia on its surface.
-
-. Haumea is the fastest rotating with only a 4 hour day. Haumea is not spherical, but elongated. It is twice as wide at the equator as Pluto but half as wide pole to pole. It's bright surface is water ice. Haumea has two moons Hi’iaka and Namaka
-
-. Dwarf planet 2002MS - ?
-
-. Dwarf planet Salacia - ?
-
-. Outside Neptune there are over 100 spherical dwarf's. Several have atmospheres. Several have moons. Several more are yet to be discovered. Teach kids this is what the Solar System looks like. There are more challenges for them to learn more. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
--- Some reviews are at: -------------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
---- email request for copies to: ------- jamesdetrick@comcast.net ---------
---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/ , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com ---
---- www.twitter.com , --- 707-536-3272 ---- Tuesday, March 11, 2014 ---
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment