Saturday, December 12, 2015

What was the 5th planet to be discovered?

-  1784  -  What was the 5th planet to be discovered?  This is about the Dwarf Planet Ceres that was discovered in 1801.  We had a spacecraft visit it this year making some startling discoveries.
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-----------------  1784  -  What was the 5th planet to be discovered?
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-  I bet you can not name it?
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-  Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, ????????
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-  It was discovered in the year 1801.
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-  It got demoted to an asteroid in 1850 having been a planet for 50 years.   It was the largest asteroid.  It got promoted to a Dwarf Planet at the same time that Pluto got demoted from a Planet to a Dwarf Planet in 2006.
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-  Ok, our 5th planet  was the Dwarf Planet, “ Ceres”
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-  Discovered in 1801 in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.  Ceres remained a “planet” for some 50 years until it got reclassified to become the largest asteroid.  Ceres is 600 miles in diameter.  Pluto is 1,473 miles in diameter.
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-  The next biggest asteroid is “ Vesta” that is 360 miles in diameter, but still considered an asteroid.
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-  When the Dawn Spacecraft approached a Ceres orbit in 2015 it discovered a proto-planet that looked very much like Pluto.  Ceres was likely even formed in the icy regions of the Kuiper Belt like Pluto before it was somehow flung into the Belt of Asteroids.
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-  Dust rains onto everything in the Asteroid Belt where there are millions of asteroids in orbit.  This dust turns surfaces into darker shades of gray.  So, when bright white spots were discovered on Ceres astronomers were surprised.  That meant Ceres might have volcanic activity that is creating spots younger than the rest of the surface.  Ceres was expected to be too small and cold to contain any volcanic activity.
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-  Now astronomers think Ceres may have an interior packed with water ice even though its surface is perfectly dry.  If water ice did sublimate to the surface it would leave salt behind.  The white salt is likely “ Epsom salt”, or,  magnesium sulfate.
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-  Ok, the white spots were the most interesting mysteries but Ceres had some other surprises.  It hosts a lone mountain that is 21,000 feet tall.  That is higher than North America’s highest peak.  This mountain peak is not surrounded by any related impact that might explain how it was formed.  So, it remains a mystery how it got here.
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-  Ceres has a crater that is 175 miles across and 9 miles deep.
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-  This little proto-planet is definitely more active and dynamic than astronomers expected.
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-  Here are some previous reviews about Ceres before the Dawn arrival:
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-  #1618 -   Ceres is icy compared to Vesta that is a dry asteroid.  It is 4% the mass of the Moon and orbit’s the Sun in 4.6 years.
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-  #847  - Ceres shares its orbit around the Sun with over a million asteroids that are all larger than 0.6 miles.  Three other asteroids are over 250 miles in diameter:  Vesta, Pallas, and Hygrea.
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-  A small number of these asteroids have orbits that cross Earth’s orbit.  These are impacts waiting to happen.  I hope you get to read this before one of them hits us.
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