More Moons Around Pluto? |
More Moons Around Pluto? |
Oct 31 2005, 05:49 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Press Release Source: NASA
NASA's Hubble Reveals Possible New Moons Around Pluto Monday October 31, 12:30 pm ET WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to view the ninth planet in our solar system, astronomers discovered Pluto may have not one, but three moons. If confirmed, the discovery of the two new moons could offer insights into the nature and evolution of the Pluto system; Kuiper Belt Objects with satellite systems; and the early Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a vast region of icy, rocky bodies beyond Neptune's orbit. "If, as our new Hubble images indicate, Pluto has not one, but two or three moons, it will become the first body in the Kuiper Belt known to have more than one satellite," said Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. He is co-leader of the team that made the discovery. Pluto was discovered in 1930. Charon, Pluto's only confirmed moon, was discovered by ground-based observers in 1978. The planet resides about 3 billion miles from the sun in the heart of the Kuiper Belt. "Our result suggests other bodies in the Kuiper Belt may have more than one moon. It also means planetary scientists will have to take these new moons into account when modeling the formation of the Pluto system," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. Stern was co-leader of the research team. The candidate moons, provisionally designated S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2, were observed approximately 27,000 miles away from Pluto. The objects are roughly two to three times as far from Pluto as Charon. The team plans to make follow-up Hubble observations in February to confirm the newly discovered objects are truly Pluto's moons. Only after confirmation will the International Astronomical Union consider names for S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2. The Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys observed the two new candidate moons on May 15, 2005. The candidates are roughly 5,000 times fainter than Pluto. Three days later, Hubble looked at Pluto again. The two objects were still there and appeared to be moving in orbit around Pluto. The team looked long and hard for other potential moons around Pluto. "These Hubble images represent the most sensitive search yet for objects around Pluto," said team member Andrew Steffl of the Southwest Research Institute. "It is unlikely that there are any other moons larger than about 10 miles across in the Pluto system," he said. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington. For detailed information and images about this research on the Web, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2005/19 For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: NASA |
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Nov 5 2005, 02:00 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 259 Joined: 23-January 05 From: Seattle, WA Member No.: 156 |
All this talk of resonance and opposition surges makes me wonder - are the masses of the two moons enough to result in any geological activity on any of the four bodies in the Pluto system?
I'm also wondering - I know the new moons were imaged in 2002; is there any chance that they show up in any of the data from the 1985 - 1990 Pluto/Charon mutual occulatations? My first guess is they'd be buried in the noise, but hope springs eternal. |
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Nov 9 2005, 01:25 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 903 Joined: 30-January 05 Member No.: 162 |
QUOTE (Gsnorgathon @ Nov 4 2005, 08:00 PM) All this talk of resonance and opposition surges makes me wonder - are the masses of the two moons enough to result in any geological activity on any of the four bodies in..... (sorry zorched the quote, T) Wow! What a good question! Pluto and Charon are known to have differing surface compositions, Pluto more methane, Charon more water ice. Consider Io, depleted of light elements, presumably from tidal heating effects. And now we are looking at Charon, seemingly depleted of a more volatile compound compared to nearby Pluto. Seems reasonable that by what ever process created Charon, it was not in tide lock at inception. As Pluto and Charon tidally interacted, power dissapated in Charon 'boiled' off the methane. Also, I think Charon would have receded from Pluto while this was occuring (Pluto not tide locked to Charon at that time either, and it would have accelerated Charon in its orbit as earth is doing to our moon even now). While Charon is receding from Pluto, its' resonances will move outward with it and "snag" outer satellites as we now observe. All this seems to fit together, resonant orbits, tide locking, tidal recession, and surface chemistry. That was a really good question, Gsnorgathon. |
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Nov 11 2005, 01:24 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 259 Joined: 23-January 05 From: Seattle, WA Member No.: 156 |
QUOTE (tasp @ Nov 9 2005, 01:25 AM) Aww, shucks! Thanks, tasp. One of my main contributions to maintaining the site's high signal to noise ratio is not posting, but occasionally I can at least think of something interesting to ask! Re: Vesta: A quick googling indicates that Vesta is only visible to the naked eye *sometimes*. Does anyone have an idea how much of the time that would be? And if there are any even dubious claims of pre-telescopic sightings? Galileo's seeing Neptune in 1613 has made me wonder if there's a comprehensive listing somewhere of discoveries that includes an "earliest known observation" column along with the "discovery" column. |
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Nov 11 2005, 03:46 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 510 Joined: 17-March 05 From: Southeast Michigan Member No.: 209 |
QUOTE (Gsnorgathon @ Nov 10 2005, 08:24 PM) Re: Vesta: A quick googling indicates that Vesta is only visible to the naked eye *sometimes*. Does anyone have an idea how much of the time that would be? I did a quickie run through with my older version of "The Sky", considering magnitudes of less than 6 as naked eye: Mag Date ----- ------------ 5.40 14-Jul-2000 5.87 27-Mar-2003 5.44 01-Jun-2007 5.63 05-Aug-2011 5.74 15-Apr-2014 5.33 20-Jun-2018 5.85 23-Aug-2022 So it looks like Vesta could be reasonably "naked eye" every 3 to 4 years, given good eyes and a fairly dark site. -------------------- --O'Dave
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Nov 12 2005, 04:00 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Contact: Carolina Martinez (818) 354-9382
News Release: 2005-163 November 11, 2005 Free Lectures on Exploring Pluto Two free public programs in Pasadena will offer an overview of the upcoming NASA mission to Pluto. Pluto is the only planet in our solar system not yet studied by a robotic explorer, but not for long. Dr. Bonnie Buratti, a New Horizons science team co-investigator from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will talk about the mission on Thursday evening, Nov. 17, at JPL and on Friday evening, Nov. 18, at Pasadena City College. Now at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the spacecraft is scheduled for launch on Jan. 11, 2006. JPL will provide the communications coverage for the mission via NASA’s Deep Space Network. Buratti’s major interest is in whether there has been geologic activity on Pluto in the recent past and whether Pluto has seasons. She is also interested in the surface composition and texture of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt Objects, millions of asteroid-like bodies from outside the orbit of Pluto, which scientists hope to observe. A native of Pennsylvania, she holds a bachelor's degree in earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and a Ph.D. in astronomy and space sciences from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She is currently a science team member on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. NASA's New Horizons mission will be the first to visit Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. The compact spacecraft carries seven science instruments for examining the geology, composition, surface, temperature and atmospheric structure of the planet and its main moon. The science team is studying whether New Horizons will be able to obtain data on the two recently discovered smaller moons of Pluto. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., manages the mission and will operate the spacecraft for NASA. Both lectures will begin at 7 p.m. Seating is first-come, first-served. The Thursday lecture will be in JPL's von Karman Auditorium. JPL is at 4800 Oak Grove Dr., off the Oak Grove Drive exit of the 210 (Foothill) Freeway. The Friday lecture will be in Pasadena City College's Vosloh Forum, 1570 E. Colorado Blvd. For more information, call (818) 354-0112. Thursday's lecture will be webcast live at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/nov05.cfm -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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