Names for large KBOs Options

[abalone]

Hi all
Not sure if you have seen this before or if this is the best place to post this link. Heres a nice picture of all the Solar System objects bigger than 320km (200 miles) Lots of TNOs
This is the link for the full size
http://kokogiak.com/solarsystembodieslargerthan200miles.html

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[dilo]

Cool link, abalone!
Even tough, the KBO list will be, for sure, obsolete in a short time...

[Paolo]

Hi all
Not sure if you have seen this before or if this is the best place to post this link. Heres a nice picture of all the Solar System objects bigger than 320km (200 miles) Lots of TNOs
This is the link for the full size
http://kokogiak.com/solarsystembodieslargerthan200miles.html

Nice. It looks like 2003 EL61 is the largest non-spherical body in the solar system

[abalone]

It made me realise how far down the pecking order those moons of Saturn that we all have been enjoying close-up at the moment like Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and especially Mimas are

[David]

A nice set of images. It reminds me of the disputes several months ago about "roundness", and illustrates just how far apart "big enough to be round" and "big enough not to be irregular are". In fact, the relatively smooth (craters apart) ellipsoid of Mimas appears to be quite exceptional for its size. Given that it obviously didn't escape severe bombardment, it's a wonder that it's not some jagged or blocky remnant like Proteus or Nereid.

[David]

Nice. It looks like 2003 EL61 is the largest non-spherical body in the solar system

It's been suggested (I forget by whom) that 2003 EL61 is actually a binary, rather than a single body.

[edstrick]

A point of distinction: What is important is not that a body be spherical, but that it be "relaxed". A fast rotator that's "soft" will relax into an oblate spheroid, a very-fast rotator may relax into a tumbling prolate ellipsoid.

Vesta *was* a dwarf planet when it was young. It was hot enough to melt internally, differentiate (except for maybe a crust), and erupt basaltic lavas onto the surface. NOW cold, it got WHACKED onto what is now it's south pole (the whole body reoriented, I'd presume) and lost one helluva lot of crust and mantle. It's cold enough now, and was cold enough at the time, it couldn't round itself back to near spherical.

[abalone]

A point of distinction: What is important is not that a body be spherical, but that it be "relaxed".

That would make me a planet most of the time. My wife describes me as excessively spherical and but I'm generally relaxed about that, except when my kids want to borrow my car keys

[alan]

It's been suggested (I forget by whom) that 2003 EL61 is actually a binary, rather than a single body.

The authors of the paper that proposed the squashed football shape didn't believe it was possible for 2003 EL61 to be a contact binary:

Another possibility is that 2003 EL61 is a binary (making 2003 EL61 a tertiary system when we include the co-orbiting satellite). In this case the mutual eclipses of the close, co-orbiting pair cause the light-curve variations. But Leone et al. (1984) show that such a binary configuration is unlikely if the lightcurve amplitude is small and the rotational velocity is high, as is the case for 2003 EL61. They tabulate approximate equilibrium solutions, assuming the co-orbiting bodies are homogenous and strengthless, but of unequal mass. In this case each body takes the shape of a triaxial ellipsoid distorted by its own rotation and by the gravity of the other body. With these assumptions, and given the short rotation period we observe, there is no stable solution for density < 5000kg/m^3. This clearly rules out a contact binary.

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/papers/ps/santa.pdf

[Littlebit]

I wonder if the scientists who 'voted' KBO out of planethood realized the impact on funding for future exploration of this region. The public likes planets, and likes to check-off planets on the 'we've been there' list. Would the US congress have approved New Horizons if the target had been a dwarf?

This is a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot mentality.

[alan]

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iauc/RecentIAUCs.html
SATELLITES OF 2003 AZ_84, (50000), (55637), AND (90482)

Anyone know if these discoveries were part of a larger search? It would be interesting to know which of the KBO's they didn't find satellites orbiting.

[Jyril]

In recent months, I'm beginning to wonder if anyone but me cares about naming. I know 2003 UB313 got a name fairly quickly, but what about 2005 FY9, announced at the same time? Why is it that 2002 TX300 and 2002 AW197 remain unnamed, despite being fairly large and known about for a few years? Does anyone have any info on this?

Most recent listing of distant minor planets is from July 3, 2007... 2003 EL61 and 2005 FY9 remain unnamed. Since Brown et al. submitted their proposal long ago, then why they still haven't got names?

[alan]

Various methods of determining which of the Kuiper belt objects are dwarf planets as described by G. Tancredi.

http://www.sc.eso.org/santiago/science/OPS...ncredi_talk.pdf