2003 Ub 313: The Incredible Shrinking Planet?, No bigger than Pluto? |
2003 Ub 313: The Incredible Shrinking Planet?, No bigger than Pluto? |
Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Jan 31 2006, 09:20 PM
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Apr 18 2006, 10:23 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
Also... at all 4 giant planets, there is a clear division of moons with relatively few objects that are really transitional.
There is "outer gravel", of which Phoebe is a large example. There are large and small "major moons". Large are Triton size and bigger, small are Iapetus/Rhea/Titania/Oberon size and smaller down to the smallest round moons There are "inner gravel" moons and "ice chips", all clearly substantially smaller than the smallest round moons with no as yet proven overlap. And there are Intra-ring moonlets and ring rubble. All 4 systems except Neptune's have these features fully developed, though scaling between gas giant and ice giant systems confuses things a bit. At Neptune, the capture of Triton into an elliptical retrograde orbit apparently took out all the pre-existing major moons, but the outer and inner gravel and rings are still there. Clearly there is a pattern shared with variations between all 4 outer planet systems and we need to pick "natural" divisions to define a nomenclature. |
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